ABTA 2012: Trend-spotting guru tells agents to adapt

Travel agents need to start selling different holidays to different people, rather than focusing on traditional sun and sea packages for ‘nuclear’ families.

William Higham, managing director and founder of The Next Big Thing, said agents should look for changes in the market, such as the growth of single parent families, and adapt.

Higham told delegates attending this year’s Travel Convention in Turkey that there are now twice as many single parents as cohabiting parents in the UK, yet when he asked the audience who offered them discounts only one hand went up.

Three-generational families was another growth area to consider, he said, as three times as many 25 to 34 year olds are now living with their parents than independently and more grandparents are moving in with their children.

Agents should also think about money-off vouchers and loyalty deals such as discounts off the third booking, said Higham.

Recession should not stifle growth, he said, pointing out that many successful businesses – including Burger King and FedEX – had launched during tough economic times.

He said the key was spotting what the customer was likely to want in the future, such as e-guidebooks.

"Publishers are looking at doing this, but I think you should be offering these to your customers, you have the knowledge."

Agents could also offer customers a service to upload their holiday snaps to Facebook, harnessing the trend amongst holidaymakers to show off to their friends.

Higham, once PR to Michael Jackson, said he believed more people would turn to travel agents in the future. "There is so much information on the internet people are drowning in data," he said. "You are going to see more people come to agents for help and advice."

He predicted that as people feel less secure about their jobs, they will start to reassess their lives and take a greater interest in nature, art and history, a fact born out, he said, by the plethora of history programmes on TV.

"Offer your customers trips that take them out of themselves; seeing the Northern Lights is so on trend now." More people will also consider trips to enhance their careers, taking more vocational holidays and, as more people make money out of their hobbies, skills-based holidays.

Volunteer tourism was another growth area, he said. However, TUI ancillaries director John Boughton, formerly MD of Real Gap which spealises in volunteer holidays, said this market had been hard hit by the rise in university tuition fees.

Higham said there would also be a quest for "digital detox" holidays that allow customers to get away from the mobiles and laptops, and health and wellbeing breaks. "People will still want to go away and they will want indulgence and luxury," he said.