Commission cuts ‘short-sighted’ – Hoseasons boss
Operators who are cutting our agents are being short-sighted – and will ultimately regret it, according to the boss of Hoseasons.
CEO Richard Carrick was speaking after lifting commission to agents by 1% for a month as part of a campaign to push sales of UK short breaks (see previous TravelMole story).
He explained that the self-catering specialist, which has almost half of its business through the trade, retained faith in agents and was prepared to reward them accordingly for making incremental sales.
One of the key objectives of the initiative – which includes training and new UK holiday information material – was to encourage agents to think about selling domestic breaks to customers booking their annual two-week holiday abroad.
Carrick said: ¨It is still true to say that travel agents do not sell anywhere remotely enough UK holidays as they could. We are going to spend the next three to six months working with agents to get more of that business.”
He claimed that people who typically book two weeks away will actually take between four and six holidays a year, one of which will be a UK break.
“I’m asking travel agents to consider every one of those customers as a UK prospect and we will help them sell a UK holiday,” said Carrick.
And he said operators who were turning off sales through the trade were being “very short-sighted”.
He added: “Those that do will regret it and will come back cap in hand.”
Report by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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