Travel company reports “rocketing” winter departures following best-ever November

Independent travel company Travel Counsellors has reported bumper figures for 2022 and continues to break records, celebrating its best ever November in history with UK sales up 66 per cent on 2019 and 40 per cent higher than the previous year, showing a “great start” to 2023.

Leisure sales, in particular, show Brits are not giving up on holidays as sales are up by 75 per cent on 2019 and 33 per cent up on 2021.

This is reflected in the Travel Counsellor’s November customer survey, which recorded 78 per cent of customers strongly agree and agree that their holidays are so important they will still travel next year, with 79 per cent either looking to book as normal or even earlier than normal in order to get the best deal.

Furthermore, Winter travel sales are also “rocketing” with the company seeing its best ever December departure month, and sales for 2023 winter period (November to April) already 25 per cent up on 2019 final figures, at over £170m so far.

Steve Byrne, CEO of Travel Counsellors, commented: “These outstanding results are a reflection of the incredible care shown by our people to their customers. Over the last few weeks we have seen higher enquiry levels and value than ever before, as people look towards their 2023 travel and want to book earlier to lock in prices.

“They also want to book with someone they can trust and will be there to offer the best advice and tailor travel to suit them, as highlighted in our recent customer survey.

“This need for tailormade travel is reflected further in the trends we are seeing, with a strong return of the multi-centre, long-haul holiday and popular destinations including Thailand, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.”

All markets in which Travel Counsellors operate are outperforming 2019, with corporate business sales also on the up by 73 per cent versus pre pandemic figures, with 2,141 bookings made last week alone.

Mat Hanson, chief financial officer of Travel Counsellors, added: “Overall, we are tracking more than 50 per cent up on 2023 departures versus 2022 even though 2022 has been a record year for us as a business, with over £800m in sales reached for the first time.

“These record-breaking results show we continue to build a solid foundation for growth, notwithstanding the current environment, and have accommodated the pent up demand that we predicted earlier in 2022 and are now witnessing for the months ahead within the travel industry.”

By Matthew Neville – Correspondent, Bdaily