Hays Independence Group members and homeworkers have been told they need to pivot to selling more long-haul holidays to thrive.
Addressing their annual overseas conference, themed ‘In it for the longhaul’, Hays Chair and owner Dame Irene Hays said: “The price segments that are seeing strong demand are not dominated any more than by the short-haul package market, they are categorically not.
“We know consumers are looking for something different. They are definitely looking for more experiences, they are looking for a different type of holiday than they have had before, at least for one of their holidays.”
Irene referred to recent data that revealed that the mid and high end markets are seeing by far the strongest demand, sitting at 69%, more than twice the demand for value holidays.
“I have never seen statistics like this in such a dramatic form before and that it really why we are pivoting,” she said.
“We intend to respond to the market trends and we intent to pivot. Not totally, short-haul holidays will always be our bread and butter, but there is no doubt if we are reliant on that in the future, there will be no future.”
Irene revealed that Hays agents make three times more profit for a long-haul sale than a short-haul, but in the first six months of this financial year, to the end of October, approximately 20% (higher if cruise is included) of holidays sold by Hays Personal Travel Consultants homeworkers were longhaul, compared with almost 37% of sales from its Explorer Travel consultants.
Just over 30% of product sold by IG members was for long-haul holidays in the same period, but Head of Commercial Claire Gibson said this should rise to 34% by the end of the financial year.
Hays has announced a three-year plan to increase its total annual long-haul sales to 350,000, up from 200,000 currently.
Top long-haul destinations for Hays are the US, UAE (including Dubai), Thailand, Mexico and Australia, but its most profitable per passenger are New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and the Maldives.
Irene said that, following the increases in the National Living Wage and employers’ National Insurance Contributions, announced in the recent Budget, there was more urgency for agents to increase profits.
She said the combined effects of the Budget meant that a typical agency employing five staff would need to turn over an extra £140,000 a year of sales ‘just to stand still’.
