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Watch: New research highlights booking trends, Covid impact on agents
With unprecedented access to frontline staff, a new survey by training provider Travel Uni was carried out during March in the first of a regular series of ‘Frontline Findings’ surveys.
TravelMole’s Graham McKenzie spoke to Travel Uni about the Travel Agency Research findings.
The Asia Pacific region is performing particularly well under the circumstances, as the most requested long-haul holiday region according to the new research.
Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), which supports the research, was interested to understand the breakdown of popularity by destination. This revealed the Indian Ocean and Africa (30%) to be the most enquired about in the region, with South East Asia (23%) followed Australia and New Zealand (21%) then the Indian subcontinent (8%), China, Japan & Korea (8%).
Not surprisingly the UK staycation and European markets lead overall, whilst other long-haul destinations highlighted included the Caribbean the Middle East and North America fared well.
A third of those surveyed expect ‘international travel to pick up significantly’ from Q4 of 2021 and similar numbers for this to occur later in Q1 of next year, showing the impact of current travel restrictions easing as the summer progresses.
The survey also highlighted the vital role travel agents play in booking holidays.
Ranking client needs in order of importance, ‘reassurance’, ‘advice’ and ‘knowledge’ came ahead of ‘price’ and ‘availability’ as the key benefits customers seek in using an agent to book their travel.
Watch the video for full details of the survey findings.
TravelMole Editorial Team
Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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