January 2020 was a booming month for the travel industry, and one of the best “Peaks” for the travel industry in many years. Confidence was higher than ever in the cruise industry, and exciting times were on the horizon with new ships and even new cruise lines being announced. And then Covid-19 happened.
After more than 2 years of heartbreak, recovery, forward-planning and heart-warming collaborations, the travel industry was feeling confident enough to finally exclaim “We’re back!”. Was there still a nervousness around whether a traditional Peaks would happen in January 2023? Of course there was. But clients could see the confidence and the excitement of tour operators sharing news of new exciting flight routes, new destinations and even more investment into new ships, aircraft and staff.
The Travel Village Group itself has grown, following investment, over the last couple of years; expanding the team working behind the scenes (from after-sales to marketing, and even creating an entirely new support team!), and growing our network of Holiday Village travel professionals. In fact, the demand for cruise holidays has increased so much that we have nearly doubled the number of Cruise Experts in the Group.
Jess Nuttall, Group Marketing Manager, explains:
We’ve made a huge investment in our websites, a new CRM, online marketing, and our greatest asset; which is of course our amazingly talented travel experts. We’ve made bigger and bolder marketing plans than ever before, and made our presence known on social media. We’ve even had face-to-face interactions at our inaugural Travel Show, which was nothing short of a huge success. There’s no one thing that’s accountable for our boom, other than the joint effort of everyone within the Group, and I couldn’t be prouder of our accomplishments.
John Warr, Group M.D. said
January was superb. We were expecting it to be a slow start to the month, as that’s become the expectation from the last few years, but it was just fantastic from day 1. Every day we felt like celebrating because we’d had yet another “best day ever”. We celebrated individual successes too; such as Holiday Villagers who had never sold cruise before reporting that they’d confidently sold their first river cruise. We had agents who had been able to utilise their new knowledge from Educational Visits and Familiarisation Trips to upsell already confirmed bookings with new excursions, or encouraging clients to try something new because they know them well enough to tell them “I know you’ll love it”. Business is booming, and honestly everyone is just buzzing off it!
As of 24th February 2023 the Group is reporting a growth in Ocean Cruise Sales of over 90%, nearly 30% growth for River Cruise Sales; and an Overall Sales growth of over 65% YOY for January & February.
