Dame Irene Hays believes the situation has arisen, in part, due to the vast complexities affecting the market such as climate change, geopolitics and economic uncertainty.
“When you have a conflation of all of these, you need talented people to navigate flight scheduling changes, destination changes, or changes in [people’s] financial circumstances.
“You need to acknowledge that’s the job today, and that’s what differentiates fantastic travel agents from people who just pile it high and sell it cheap.”
’High plateau’
Dame Irene and Woodall-Johnston insist both sales and profit have been strong across Hays IG’s more than 100 members, with the group welcoming 12 new businesses over the past 12 months.
In a nod to the IG conference’s “year of two peaks” theme, coined by Dame Irene at the agency’s retail conference last November, head of Hays IG, Harriet Thompson, congratulated delegates on a peak of their own – the best trading day in its 29-year…