Agents at 80s-themed fancy dress party
Jet2 honours its top-selling agents in 41 categories
Heapy: We have no plans to open shops of our own
Jet2holidays has no target for the proportion of sales it makes through agents compared with direct via its website and call centre – despite reporting its first drop in six years.
The percentage of sales made
via travel agents dropped from 32% – a level all-but unchanged since 2011 – to 28% this year, which chief executive Steve Heapy put down to Thomas Cook’s decision in February to stop selling Jet2holidays. Heapy also reiterated that Jet2holidays has no plans to open retail shops of its own. Instead, he set out plans for independent agents to “grow with us”. “When we started Jet2holidays
we always said we will deal with travel agents when we are big, just like we do today. We haven’t got arrogant or slow,” he said. “We have built long-term
relationships and don’t keep changing our product or incentives. We take our relationships very seriously and we will work with you [independent agents] just like
we did nine years ago. We want a partnership, not a dictatorship.” Head of trade Alan Cross told
Travel Weekly: “It’s about making sure that however that customer wants to book a holiday, that avenue is available to them. We don’t want high street retail agencies of our own. “There’s no strategy for a certain
percentage of sales through travel agents. It could be 28%, 32% or 50%, it doesn’t affect us as long as the overall volumes are there.”
Rates of agent sales varied
across geographical regions. In Belfast and Newcastle, rates of sales through agents were 40% and 39%, compared with only 20% for sales of holidays with flights from Stansted. Cross also explained that there
was a difference in the type of holiday sold in different regions, with agents selling packages out of Stansted booking a higher proportion of Jet2holidays’ Indulgent Escapes premium range.
Gatwick slots ‘were never a goal for Jet2’
Jet2.com never had any intention of bidding for the slots vacated by the collapse of Monarch, boss Steve Heapy confirmed. After Monarch fell into administration in October,
Jet2.com upped capacity from Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds Bradford airports by 600,000 in two days. But when asked if
Jet2.com had plans to move into Gatwick for the
first time as the slots previously held by Monarch became available, Heapy said it was never a consideration. “We weren’t considering them because there is a lot more to do
at our existing bases,” he said. “We worked for four days solid to put more flights on from Leeds Bradford, Manchester and Birmingham. We don’t want to spread ourselves too thin and do things too quickly.”
Awards were handed out to top-performing independent agencies in 41 categories and split between Jet2holidays’ northern and southern regions. The best individual agency gongs went to Holiday Getaway, in Wigan, and The Holiday and Flight Centre, in Hamilton, while the best branch as part of a chain went to Midcounties Co-operative Travel, Walsall, and to Stewart Travel’s branch in The Forge, Glasgow.
Althams Travel and Hays
Travel Retail took home the awards for best-performing chain of 25 or more shops in each region. The best-performing chains of fewer than 10 branches were Sunseekers Travel and Ramsay World Travel. The best-performing chains with 11-24 branches were Hays Travel North West and Dawson & Sanderson. Awards were also given out
for top-selling agencies for individual airports, top sellers for certain products such as Jet2Villas and Jet2CityBreaks, and top sellers of conference sponsor Palladium Hotel Group, which runs conference venue Hard Rock Hotel Tenerife.
Award-winner: Holiday Getaway
7 December 2017
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