The Advantage Travel Partnership, UK’s largest consortium of independent travel agents, reveals how travel agents are bucking the trend and saving Britain’s much loved high street. Recent figures from the Centre for Retail Research revealed that 10,494 shops closed for the last time during 2023 and that 119,495 jobs were lost in the sector. On decimated UK high streets, travel agents are rising like phoenixes from the ashes. The Advantage Travel Partnership can reveal that its travel agent partners are reviving the high street travel agent with many anticipating new store openings in the next 12 months.

2023 was predicted to be a tough year for the travel industry with the cost-of-living crisis expected to bite hard, and significantly reduce the disposable income of consumers across the country. Whilst in the main this has been true, travel, and specifically the booking of holidays, have by and large remained unaffected by the economic situation and Travel Agents following catastrophic trading during the pandemic are now seeing business bounce back. This boom does not only apply to travel agents with bricks and mortar stores, the growth Advantage is seeing amongst its travel agency partners is across the board as more consumers look to book their trips with an expert travel agent.  The Advantage Travel Partnership recently reported that it experienced all-time record high sales to begin 2024 with Saturday 13th January being the busiest day ever recorded amongst Advantage’s travel agency partners.

Paul Hardwick Director of Retail at Fred Olson Travel said:

“We have a really ambitious growth plan at Fred Olsen Travel. We’re currently working towards the goal of 25 stores by the end of 2025. The travel business was decimated during the pandemic but the entire industry really has come out stronger. People have realised that holidays are an absolute must and therefore there has been a real renaissance of the travel agent. The pandemic showed the real worth of a decent travel agent. There has never been a greater value in being an agent, customers want someone with real knowledge and service to help them which has driven Fred Olson on this expansion trail.”

Amongst existing Advantage travel agency partners 22 new branches have been opened since the start of the pandemic and 50% of these have been within the last 12 months which shows a great amount of business confidence to invest in new stores on the back of the year first year of major post-pandemic recovery. Compared to 2019, new branch openings of existing Advantage travel agency partners are up 55%. However, Advantage travel agency partners are sighting staffing shortages and operating costs as concerns across the board.

Hardwick said: “We are facing challenges in our expansion, particularly when it comes to recruitment and cost management.  There were a lot of people who dropped out of the industry throughout the pandemic and left industry completely. As part of our recruitment drive, we’ve created a travel academy to bring apprentices into the business. We’ve also created a 3-month intensive training programme to help bring in new people who we can then place in our new stores.”

A recent survey amongst Advantage travel agency partners showed that 17% of those who answered the survey are looking to open a new branch in 2024. Many Advantage travel agency partners who are not looking to expand their footprint have reported that they are planning growth for 2024, within the parameters of their current business. The survey also revealed that 74% are seeing most customers between the ages of 40-59 years and that their customers are looking to book with a travel agent to find the best deal within their budget and also help them to book bucket list trips for the year ahead.

Hardwick continued: “We are getting lots of new customers, people who wouldn’t have previously booked with a travel agent and we’re also seeing a lot of new types of holidays being booked. A lot more honeymoons and big package holidays along with multi-generational holidays particularly for cruise trips to the Americas or the Med. We’ve seen a surge in grandparents wanting to treat the whole family to a holiday together. People that possibly retired during the pandemic who might have a bit of extra cash to spend on taking their loved ones away.”

After years of lockdowns and cancelled plans, people are desperate to travel freely and with minimal disruption. But complex COVID-19 restrictions, airport chaos caused by staff shortages and strikes, bad weather and general uncertainty have knocked consumer confidence. Travel agents are opening new branches across the UK in 2024 to meet customer demand for face-to-face advice and reassurance.

Iain Kirkbright Managing Director at Sunlounger Travel said: “We set up our first branch in 2019 and now have plans for 20-25 locations over the next five years. I think the growth of agents on the high street is primarily down to the fact that people like the personal touch, they want to get in-person advise from someone who deals with travel all day long, they want the reassurance that they are making the right decisions with their money.

Scott McCabe Project Director at Oasis Travel said: “We now have eight branches across Northern Ireland. Opening new stores for us is a very organic process, we don’t really have a target figure in mind in terms of opening more stores but we have really great footfall and will open further stores where we see opportunity. We have a great loyal clientele who like coming into our physical offices. We really pride ourselves on our stores, they make people excited about the travel, they want to come in, sit down and talk to our agents about their trips.”

Kelly Cookes, Chief Commercial Officer of The Advantage Travel Partnership, said: “It’s fantastic that we are seeing so much growth with Advantage travel agency partners opening new branches. The demise of the high street has been a long-term trend but what we’re seeing is that travel agents are integral to returning the UK high street to its former glory. New branches opening on high streets to meet the growing demand in-person sales is a trend that we are seeing amongst our Advantage travel agency partners cross Britain. People are looking to immerse themselves in the full end-to-end experience of booking holidays and agents are diversifying to meet this need and ensure they are well positioned to benefit from retail footfall. We’re also seeing this with up pop-up travel agents that are setting themselves up close to leading stores and in areas of high footfall so they are ideally located to attract new customers.

We really hope to see this upward trajectory continue throughout the year ahead and hope that this highlights to many the importance that the UK outbound travel market has for the UK economy.”