Luxury operator Western & Oriental has responded to criticism from travel agents and decided to open on Sundays during the key booking period.
From this weekend, the operator will open seven days a week for a trial period. The decision follows warnings from travel agents that independent operators, like Western & Oriental, are missing out on bookings because their call centres are closed on Sundays.
Travel agents and homeworkers that take bookings seven days a week complained they were forced to switch-sell to larger operators whose offices were open on Sundays to avoid keeping clients waiting until Monday to confirm their holidays.
Western & Oriental, which opened on Sundays in January and February last year but didn’t initially plan to repeat the experiment, confirmed it will open on Sundays from 10:00 to 14:00 from this weekend until the end of March, after which it will review the situation.
"The travel landscape is changing so fast and we are fully prepared to be flexible in response to market conditions and maintaining partnership relationships," said head of trade sales Steve O’Loughlin.
The company said it didn’t receive much pick-up in bookings last year when it opened seven days a week, but said it accepted times had changed with the increase in homeworkers.
