The Travel Network Group is likely to add to its 26 owned stores as soon as this month, according to chief executive Gary Lewis.
During a webcast interview with Travel Weekly, Lewis said the retail side of the business represented a “small” part of operations because there are a total of 1,100 members, but he revealed growth was imminent.
Asked whether shops would be added this year, he said: “Without doubt. This month, probably.”
Lewis said the growth of the shop network would have benefits for the wider membership.
“If we can demonstrate, for example, that a shop is 24% up in a particular area and our members are 12% up, we can say why and explain what we’re doing,” he said.
Lewis added: “We bring stats and data back and show them [members], with honesty, this is what we’re doing with our 26 shops across the country and this is how we’re benchmarking their numbers.
“And we’ll say this shop is up for this reason and this shop is down maybe for personnel reasons and not for market reasons.
“So it allows you to be granular with the detail about what’s actually happening with the market and benchmarking that.”
Taking into account the performance across all members, last year was successful.
“Across the membership, we were about 12.5% to 13% up,” Lewis said.
“It slowed down in December a little bit more than hoped, but overall it was a fantastic year for the majority of our members – we had record days and record months.”
He also expressed positivity about this year, describing members as “really excited” about 2025.
Continued investment in retail estates should be recognised as a sign that traditional approaches to travel sales remain relevant today, he added.
“When we came into the industry a long time ago, people were telling us even then that retail in the high street was dead – it clearly isn’t. It’s a fantastic way of living and breathing in the community,” he said.