Travel agents will evolve because of recession

Simon Ferguson, Travel Weekly’s publishing direction said, during a trade conference, that luxury, cruise and other specialist holiday products are areas for growth. Travel and leisure agents were surveyed and 55% expected luxury holiday trade to grow in the next five years, 46% thought cruises would grow, and 44% said experience holidays would increase. However, he said, ‘Few people would bet on the economy getting any better. … downturns tend to weed out any unprofitable business …knowledge, service, and trust will be key for agents to survive the current downturn.’

He added that trust has become a key issue, ‘…who would have thought a year ago that the industry's third biggest player would leave 85,000 people stranded overseas? Customer perception about who they can trust will be shot through. The survey was completed by around 500 leisure and business members and 300 agents, also showed that 84% believe customers are carrying out a little or a lot more background research, much of it online.