Travel agencies are going into 2015 with increasing sales and an improving economy, as both individual agencies and agency groups reported increases in business in 2014.
Nearly three-quarters of ASTA members said that sales for the first half of 2014 were better than or the same as for the same period a year earlier. Forty-five percent credited this growth to an increase in the number of transactions, and 43% said sales increases were due to an increased customer base.
Industry groups were reporting growth, as well. Signature Travel Group reported double-digit increases in 2014 over 2013, and advance sales for 2015 were growing faster than at the same time a year earlier.
Cruise Planners, the home-based travel agent franchise network, is projecting a 44% increase in bookings for 2015 and said that the average Cruise Planners franchisee grew its business by 26%, based on departures, in 2014.
Ninety percent of Travel Leaders Group agencies said in September that their overall bookings were greater than or equal to 2013, and Travel Leaders Group sales were up overall in 2014.
In November, ARC said that agent sales of airline tickets were up 4.5% for the first 10 months of the year, a six-year high.
Hotel occupancy in the U.S. will reach a 30-year high next year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
At the same time, the U.S. economy is improving, on track for its strongest year of job creation since 1999, according to the latest figures released by the Labor Department, and that came on the heels of job gains in September and October.
Another boon for retailers is lower oil prices, meaning consumers are spending less at the gas pump and less on home heating, freeing up dollars for discretionary spending.
Consumer confidence reflects this; the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index was holding steady at its second-best since shortly after the recession began, its strongest start to a holiday shopping season since 2007. (The report was produced by Langer Research Associates, which is owned by the reporter's husband.)
At the same time, more Americans are using travel agents, according to MMGY's Portrait of American Travelers, which reported that 18% of those surveyed used a travel agent, compared with 12% a year earlier. And the group that used agents the most in that period was millennials, 28% of whom used a travel agent, as opposed to 21% of mature travelers, 15% of Gen-Xers and 13% of baby boomers.
Meanwhile, more agency groups are focusing on selling agents, not supplier products, and they appear to be cracking the code when it comes to generating highly qualified, high-end leads over the Internet.
The Travel Leaders Franchise Group and Virtuoso have busted the myth that the Internet is a price-sensitive channel by creating lead-generation programs that have been resulting in sales of $20,000 to $50,000 and up.
Search engine-optimized marketing and agent biographies are central to these efforts. Agents are getting leads for major trips, such as yearlong, round-the-world FITs.
Ensemble Travel Group relaunched its website, and it, too, ultimately will feature agent biographies and use search engine optimization to drive business to agencies that decide to participate in the program.
Marketing agents, not travel suppliers, is the core philosophy of a year-old host agency, the Gifted Travel Network.
The retail travel community has also begun to rally behind ASTA, with several groups mandating membership in the travel agent trade group or promoting it heavily at meetings held by consortia, franchises and host agencies. That trend started with an unprecedented meeting of consortia heads and ASTA executives last winter and picked up steam from there.
Signature Travel Network and Travel Leaders Associates have mandated ASTA membership for their members, and the MAST Travel Network, representing agencies in the Midwest, is subsidizing dues for its member agencies.
ASTA is the only agency organization that routinely monitors legislative initiatives on the federal, state and local levels that have the potential not just to hurt agencies but in some cases to shut them down. This is particularly true in tough economic times, when politicians leave no stone unturned searching for new revenue.
However, it has struggled to communicate this value to rank-and-file members. ASTA estimates that only 24% of U.S. agents belong to ASTA.
The Society has been reaching out to agents in a variety of ways. Zane Kerby, ASTA's president and CEO, has attended many non-ASTA industry events, and other industry staffers are speaking or conducting workshops at consortium meetings. The stated goal of this outreach is to communicate ASTA's value to agents and get feedback from them, as well.