EasyJet holidays sells through travel agents for the first time

EasyJet holidays has started to sell through travel agents for the first time, with plans to have 3,000 trade partners onboard by early September.

The brand, launched last November, has partnered with Hays Travel, Hays Independence Group, Travel Counsellors, The Travel Network Group, Advantage Travel Group, Mid Counties Cooperative Travel and Protected Trust Services.

It has a new trade portal for agents and has hosted more than 3,000 agents on webinars as well as a series of agent partner days earlier in the year.

EasyJet holidays said it will support the trade launch with marketing assets for use across social media, customer emails, in store window POS and screens, and partner websites.

CEO Garry Wilson said: "It’s always been really important to us to work with the trade and it’s something we’ve been absolutely committed to even though we’ve had a couple of unfortunate timings setbacks.

"We recognise the fantastic job they do and know that they will be able to attract a different type of customer to consider and choose an easyJet holiday. For launch we’ll have materials in more than 1,800 shop windows in some key regions across the UK.

"And we think that now more than ever customers will be looking to their trusted travel agents to help with holiday bookings. We look forward to welcoming all of our partners on board and working together to make this a great success."

Head of Distribution Si Morris-Green added: "It’s really exciting to be starting to launch with a fantastic range of trade partners. We’ve worked really hard to bring this to life and we think everyone we’re working with represents the full breadth and depth of the trade sector and it covers high street and homeworkers too.

"We’ve put a lot in to our communications and invested a lot of time in our agents – they’ve been taking part in dedicated webinars and we hosted a series of successful agent partner days earlier in the year. We can’t wait to continue this ongoing support with a new dedicated trade team."

John and Irene Hays, co-owners of Hays Travel, said: "It’s great to see the commitment from easyJet holidays to the independent travel trade and the high street."

Kirsten Hughes, Travel Counsellors Managing Director and Chief Commercial Officer, said the easyJet holidays brand ‘offers a great addition to our portfolio of product’.

Mark Mitchell, Head of Commercial & Product at Midcounties Co-operative Travel said it would ‘attract new customers to the travel agent booking channel’.