Whilst travel remains one of the industries to have been hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, at Holidaysplease we have continued to find a way through.

After a strong recovery through June and July as highlighted in our last blog HERE August was a bit of a backward step with the constant uncertainty of quarantine impacting sales.

Undeterred we were back on the front foot as a team in September, looking to generate more enquiries than we had in August, which we did, and get sales back up closer to the levels from our record September from 2019…..which we did 🙂

Whilst the market achieved in the region of 30% of last September’s total sales, the Holidaysplease Homeworking Team achieved 71% of September 2019’s net commission total. Still 29% down, but in the circumstances, a result not to be sniffed at.

The key to achieving this was to understand the dynamic of the current market place and then work accordingly.

Uncertainty remains, but so does interest. What has to be recognised is that due to the uncertainty there will be less people willing to commit and book however much interest there is.

This can be balanced off by generating more enquiries as conversion of enquiry to booking will be lower than usual, and actual booking numbers will be down even when enquiry numbers remain pretty similar.

Hold on! More effort for less reward, that doesn’t sound like much of an opportunity does it??!!

Not really, but this is where a full appreciation of what is happening in the market really comes into play. There are two key factors that are combining to very positive effect.

1. The Holidaysplease average sale has risen markedly over the last 6 months of the pandemic, and in September it sat at nearly £7,000 which is a 55% increase year on year.
2. Discount levels are down as there is less competition in the market place which led to a 17% increase in the net margin on  our September sales compared to last September.

These two factors combined mean that Holidaysplease Homeworkers are able to earn the same commission in a month, even though they may only be doing half the number of bookings because they are making over 80% more in commission on each sale they make.

 Now, whilst the dynamic of the market place is creating opportunity, at the end of the day, it’s the attitude of each individual travel homeworker that is really critical to the results they achieve.

Thankfully Team Holidaysplease are a resilient bunch that like to find a way so embraced the challenge of servicing more enquiries in September than August, and worked those enquiries with the positive belief that a good number would book despite all the Covid uncertainty.

“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re probably right” is a well known favourite saying for us at Holidaysplease, and we most often think we can!

If you think travel homeworking might be an opportunity you think you can make work going forward, get in touch. We’d love to talk to you about homeworking with us at Holidaysplease.

Just drop an email to gemma.mcleod@holidaysplease.com or give us a call on 0121 200 5750.

It is fair to say that quite a lot has happened since we were down in London in February picking up the TTG Luxury Homeworking Business of the Year award!

There is no denying that the Covid-19 crisis has provided the World with it’s biggest challenge of the modern era, and travel has been one of the worst affected industries.

Every single travel company has had to face up to and deal with a situation that was previously unimaginable, and Holidaysplease is no exception.

As the crisis hit the UK in early March, we made projections for the remainder of 2020 and planned accordingly.

We had three primary goals. To look after our customers. To support our homeworkers. To survive and come out the other side of the crisis in the best shape possible.

With an initial focus on looking after our customers and supporting our homeworkers, we kept the vast majority of our Head Office team working. This allowed us to stay in control as the crisis unfolded.

Once we had control and some real understanding of how the crisis was likely to affect travel short and medium term, we turned our focus to survival.

Holidaysplease is a very well financed business. We have no borrowing or debt, and the year leading into the crisis had been a record one for sales. So our cash position was strong. Whilst every travel company was going to find the next few months incredibly tough, we were in the best possible position to come through.

Our Bankers agreed and confirmed that they were happy to provide funding should we need it.  Still we followed a prudent path to conserve cash by cutting down on overheads and started to make more use of the furlough scheme.

Our incredible team of resourceful homeworkers cracked on with helping their customers re-book and their amazing efforts have resulted in us retaining over 70% of our no-fly affected bookings.

Testament to their incredible work and service was Holidaysplease being currently rated the Number 1 travel agent on review site Trustpilot.

And it wasn’t too long before we recognised that there was an opportunity in the market place for new business! Whilst the majority of travel had shut down, Team Holidaysplease got back on the front foot looking to make things happen!

Of course to start with the number of new bookings was nothing like what we would usually expect to see, nevertheless, through April and May new sales grew steadily and we booked over 60% of what we would usually transact in a normal June.

The strong business retention rates and our increasing new business has meant that we are operating well inside of the projections we made at the onset of the crisis and our focus continues to now switch from protection to re-build with a real confidence for what the post-crisis future of Holidaysplease and our Homeworkers will look like.

A key factor in that re-build will of course be the opportunity to invite more experienced travel experts to join us at Holidaysplease. We will continue to focus on finding the right people for our homeworking team, quality over quantity has always been our mantra. We have a genuine desire to see people come on board and be productive rather than just another bum on just another seat.

In saying that, we are hungry to get the right people on board and working with us. Through lock down we have already run two virtual inductions for five new team members, and we have another five being virtually inducted very soon.

So we would love to hear from anyone who is serious about travel homeworking as an option for the future.

An email to gemma.mcleod@holidaysplease or richard.dixon@holidaysplease.com will get you to us.

And if you want a little reminder of why Holidaysplease is a multi-award winning travel homeworking business, HERE are 10 of the key reasons.