Blue Monday drives holidays firm to record performance
Manchester-based holiday bookings group, Travel Counsellors, booked a record £5.53m of business in one day during January, with more than £50m of sales booked in the month so far.
The record daily rate came on Wednesday, January 18, following on the heels of £4.7m of bookings on ‘Blue Monday’, January 16, when people are claimed to be at their lowest following the Christmas period and subsequent return to work.
Travel Counsellors said customer sentiment is high with 89% of respondents to a recent pulse survey still looking to travel, despite any impact on cost of living. This comes as Travel Counsellors launches its ‘Let yourself go’ campaign during January, with a 92% increase in sales this month compared with January 22 levels.
Jim Eastwood, global sales director at Travel Counsellors, said: “This is a record breaking January so far, with Blue Monday spurring customers on to book their holidays for the year, in addition to our sizeable corporate travel sales. This month, we have already celebrated six of the top 10 sales days ever recorded, and we are only half-way through January.
“These outstanding results show that, despite the current environment, customers are still placing great value on travel experiences.”
Spain (24%) and the USA (13%) are proving popular destinations of choice, followed by Greece, the UAE, also as a gateway to the Indian Ocean, Italy, Finland/Lapland and Thailand.
From a luxury leisure perspective, numerous bookings were made at more than £50,000, showing the appetite to cross off bucket list trips with longer stays where experience is everything, in addition to the increase of multi-generational family groups travelling together.
Trips include an amazing gorilla experience in Rwanda costing more than £250,000 and a once in a lifetime Nile cruise of almost £90,000.
By volume, trips abroad during February and March are increasingly popular as customers look to get away over winter for a short break. However, customers are also back to forward planning their summer holidays with July and August remaining the biggest departure months.
Sales for financial year 2023, from November 1, 2022 to present, have risen by 80% on previous year figures and up 40% on pre-pandemic levels.
Last year Travel Counsellors recorded a record breaking year taking in £800m in sales and welcomed more than 150 new franchisees globally. This year the company will be investing £10m into its bespoke technology.
