58 | TRAVEL TRADE NEWS
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‘Fly and Flop’ Holidays, 2025 Predictions and Expansion Interest: Meet Hays Travel’s Retail Director, Jane Shum
INTRODUCING Jane Shum, the retail director at Hays Travel. Shum has been with Hays Travel for over 20 years, back when the high-street agency had 30 shops, which has now grown to over 500, making it the UK’s largest independent Travel agency. Trends come and go year on year within the travel industry and consumer wants and needs change. This peaks season is no different, which Shum has highlighted with its two steps forward, one step back for Hays Travel consumer trends. “I think the difference we have seen is people still want what we call a ‘fly and flop’” she said. Moving on from previous times during the covid pandemic, travellers may be moving back to the basics, and these ‘fly and flop’ holidays allow customers to fly off and relax on simple style comfort holidays. She continued, “what we are seeing is more experiential and more touring. And I think people are wanting to go a little bit further afield. A little bit more sightseeing and things like that, even long haul destinations. There’s a lot of people wanting to do that.”. A boom in bucket-list travel hit the market soon after the covid pandemic and this has catapulted sales regarding long-haul and unique travel; much of which many may not have done before. Hays’ insights show this. Shum talks of ‘multi-generational’ travel and the growing want for this. “we are seeing more multi-generations taking cruises and all going away together’. This togetherness has protruded throughout the industry as normality resumed for travel, and it is showing no signs of slowing down.
Trends and predictions tend to go hand-
in-hand, with trends feeding into new predictions regularly. Shum highlighted how customers are searching earlier for their next year getaways, with October time growing in 2024 for a peak browsing time; this is ‘a little be earlier than usual’ she explained. “For long-haul, you see a lot of people think about it around November time, it may not be until January they’re actually coming in {to stores} and saying ‘yeah, you know what? We’ll do that’. Searching for holidays at an earlier time is helping with accurate predictions for the year ahead, allowing agencies to target destinations and selling trends to help bolster the customer experience, and provide a relevant and consumer-lead approach to selling holidays. Jane’s predicted that river cruising is going to trend even further in 2025, with ‘many more river ships coming out’ over the next period of a year.
Pushing predictions into new prospects
of further expansion into Northern Ireland, Shum delved into the possibility and what to expect saying, “we are well covered in Northern Ireland and since coming {into Northern Ireland} after Thomas cook, we have opened three shops. So we’ve got them and we are looking at further expansion. We wouldn’t say where now at the moment… we are certainly looking at other places within Northern Ireland and we’re certainly keen to expand.”. Hays Travel’s takeover of Thomas Cook stores across the UK vaulted the agency into its prime position, which it has grown vastly for the past 6 years.
February 2025 Gold Medal
Announce Online Booking System for Charter Flights
GOLD Medal has announced that agents can now book an array of charter airlines online. As well as access to all the major schedule airlines customers know and love, the new range of popular charter airlines includes: easyJet, Jet2, TUI, Norse Atlantic Airways and Sun Express.
Gold Medal has a vast portfolio of over 10,000 properties across Europe’s most beloved destinations including renowned brands IKOS Resorts, Sani Resort, Mitsis Hotels, Grecotel, Melia Hotels & Resort, Domes Resorts and Anantara Hotels & Resorts, covering 29 destinations. Italy,
Spain, Greece, Turkey,
Iceland, Portugal, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta and Egypt are amongst the destinations now available to book on the operator’s website. As with their long=-haul product, agents can still tailor-make their customers’ getaway combining their choice of destination, property and airlines flying from their regional airport.
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