Travel Counsellors says it is ‘bucking the trend’ of other travel agencies in Australia by welcoming ‘strong sales growth’.
The home-based group said sales between January and June this year in the Australian market were up 14 percent year-on-year.
The announcement follows last week’s downgrade of Flight Centre’s expected earnings for the 2014/15 financial year. Click here for more information.
An increase in cruise sales is driving growth.
So how is the company achieving growth?
Travel Counsellors says it’s a number of things, but the boom in cruising is definitely contributing to sales.
While Flight Centre attributed the slow down in sales to a fall off in leisure bookings, Travel Counsellors says cruising, which represents a significant portion of the company’s leisure travel bookings, remains popular with strong forward bookings for both ocean and river itineraries.
Also driving up sales is repeat bookings.
Repeat bookings are at 65 percent, which Travel Counsellors says indicated a ‘high level of trust and satisfaction between customers and their agent’.
“It’s clear that our customers value the personalised service and expert advice that Travel Counsellors offer.”
Tracy Parkinson, Travel Counsellors Australia General Manager
Then there’s incentives like the company’s new internal sales challenge.
The challenge requires teams of Travel Counsellors to work together for a reward prize of an all-inclusive incentive trip to Sabah.
Not only did it contribute to an uplift in sales, it also increased interaction between agents.
We bet everyone in head office is doing the Liz Lemon ‘rain’ dance.
