Travel agents are celebrating a busy start to the Peak booking season, with more customers than ever before booking on Christmas Day itself.
One agent who made a Christmas Day sale is West Sussex-based Hayley Backley, associate at Travel Four Seasons, who confirmed a £5,041 booking just 20 minutes before she had to leave for Christmas dinner.
Hayley said: “The client books with me for both work and leisure. She was travelling to Jamaica on a family holiday on 28 December and needed to sort out a work trip to Colorado Springs in January before she went. We started talking on Christmas Eve and the booking was paid and made on Christmas Day. I made the booking at 3.50pm, just before I left the house for our Christmas dinner reservation.”
Two agents told Travel Gossip they made bookings late on Christmas Eve for people who wanted to surprise loved ones with a holiday as a Christmas present. One agent secured the booking at just after midnight on Christmas Day itself. Another told us she booked her own holiday on Christmas Day.
Agent Sarah Pratt, who runs Sarah’s Instant Holidays, part of Vertical Travel Group, made a £7,500 booking at 11pm on Christmas Eve. Sarah said: “It was for two adults and one child for 10 nights in August, at the Anemos Luxury Grand Resort in Crete. The clients had seen me advertise it and asked for prices. We worked on it for a week or so and they decided late on Christmas Eve. I didn’t want it to go, or change in price, so we grabbed it.”
And Laura Featonby, who runs Laura’s Travel, part of the Travel Village, held up a family dinner at the Ivy Manchester on Christmas Eve to secure a ‘lovely’ Jet2Villas booking for nine people, worth £10,800.
Laura said: “My regular client, who I’d been back and forth with, messaged to ask if it was too late to book as the family was all in agreement about the villa.”
Meanwhile, Hays Travel Personal Travel Consultant Michelle Rodde spent part of Christmas Day creating five adverts to go live at 4am on Boxing Day morning. The ads paid off and Michelle took two bookings on Boxing Day and 21 more between 27-30 December.
Michelle said: “The total value is approximately £70,000. Most are family bookings – either families going on their own or with other families. I always open over Christmas and New Year because the families are together and relaxed and happy to spend time with me to book their summer holiday.”
Jet2holidays said ‘more people than ever’ booked on Christmas Day 2024.
CEO Steve Heapy said: “Boxing Day is traditionally when the peak holiday booking period has started, but we saw the bookings rush start earlier this year – with Christmas Eve onwards proving to be extremely popular, and Christmas Day itself seeing a bumper number of bookings.
“Customers are obviously turning to a well-deserved holiday to give themselves something to look forward to. With everything that happens on Christmas Day, it is fantastic to see so many people booking their holidays in between opening the presents and having their Christmas dinners!”
Not Just Travel reported a four-fold increase in Boxing Day holiday bookings compared to the same day last year, and said bookings were also made on Christmas Day.
Co-founder Steve Witt said: “It shouldn’t be a surprise that we see bookings happening on Christmas Day and Boxing Day every year. The travel industry is 24/7 and so are we.”
