Wendy Wu Tours has been enjoying a “very strong” January, with demand for solo travel helping to drive sales.
At the time of taking part in a webcast interview with Travel Weekly, Gary King, the operator’s head of trade sales, said it was too early to talk of a record-breaking performance, but he hailed agents’ performance.
Company founder Wendy Wu said the general trend in recent days had been that sales volumes were 25% up year on year.
She added that solo travel now represented about 25% to 30% of business, with the proportion having risen since the pandemic. Before that point, she said, the percentage had stood at around 15%.
Noting the steady growth of that segment, King said: “Solo travel is now representing a huge chunk of our business.”
Wu added: “Loads of travel agents have loads of solo passengers.”
During January’s sale campaign, the operator has been offering free solo supplements across most of its range and half-price supplements “at worst”.
While dedicated solo departures continue to appeal, King said increasing numbers of solo travellers were interested in joining other tours.
“They’re more than happy to go on a tour with 26 or 27 other people. Maybe there’ll be family members, there’ll be couples, there’ll be friends travelling together, and they’re more than happy to [join them],” he added.
Expanding on the success of this year’s peaks, King noted that Northern Irish agents had shown strong support for the introduction of a dedicated brochure with flights from Dublin.
He said: “If you are a Northern Irish agent, many of your customers would prefer to go from Dublin rather than have to go from Belfast through London. It’s much more convenient. It’s much quicker. Pricing generally tends to be better.”
He added: “Thank you to any agent in Northern Ireland that has been supporting us. We’ve had a 400% increase [in sales] this January versus [last year].”