That was the consensus from the latest Travel Agent Mood Index, which is compiled annually by Carnival Cruise Lines.

The report, which is now in its fifth year, is designed to assess which factors made agents feel optimistic – or pessimistic – about business in 2015, looking at external events such as the weather and economy, in addition to ongoing challenges in the trade.

Some 217 agents participated in the survey, nearly half of whom (49.3%) were independent high street agents. Twenty-four per cent were high street agents from multiples, while 17% were homeworkers and 10% were online travel agents.

Looking at 2015, respondents were asked to rank a number of factors between 0 (no impact) and 10 (greatly impacted), to ascertain which elements they believed had the greatest impact – whether negative or positive – on bookings for overseas holidays.

Poor summer weather in the UK was noted as having the biggest impact, receiving an average rating of 6.4, followed by the improving economy, which was ranked an average of 5.9, and the increasing costs of holidays, which agents rated 5.7 as a factor which impacted bookings.

However, despite a number of challenges last year, agents suggested 2015 had still been largely positive – 81% said they had hit their sales targets in Q2 and Q3 of 2015, and 80% said they expected to hit their targets in Q4.

With regards to which kinds of holidays were favoured by consumers in the summer season (April to September) last year, those surveyed said cruise had performed strongly, with 18% citing it as one of the top-performing sectors.

This was closely followed by package holidays (16%) and dynamic packages (15%). Security concerns Few would doubt that 2016 is likely to be challenging for the travel industry, following the many tragic terror incidents last year, and this was reflected in the index, with 66% of respondents ranking safety top when asked to name the biggest challenge facing the travel industry.

Second, but ranked much lower than safety, was discounting, which 20% of agents named as their biggest challenge. In the previous survey 67% cited discounting as the biggest challenge facing the industry, with safety not even offered as an option, emphasising how much the travel landscape has changed since 2014.

Looking at cruise specifically, discounting featured much more prominently, with 47% of those surveyed arguing that it remained the single biggest challenge facing the sector. This is up from 2014, when 46% said it presented the largest concern.

The cost of cruising still ranks highly too – 32% of agents said they believed it was the biggest challenge facing the sector. Reinforcing the concerns about discounting, 37% said they believe there is still too much discounting in the cruise market, although while 47% of respondents agreed, they also said the situation had improved compared with last year.

Interestingly, despite an obvious resentment of discounting, a high proportion of respondents (41%) admitted they engage in discounting themselves. Meanwhile, despite attempts to educate the trade about cruise, it seems that more needs to be done to train agents – and consumers – about the sector.

Eighteen per cent of respondents said that a lack of knowledge was their biggest obstacle to selling cruise, while the perception of cruise being for older people was named as the largest barrier to people booking a cruise rather than a land holiday, with 41% believing this to be the main reason. Looking ahead to 2016, it seems agents feel largely positive about the coming year.

Asked to rate how they were feeling about the health of the travel industry on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the highest, the majority of agents responded with a seven (29%), followed by 26% who said eight. Looking at cruise specifically, forward bookings for the sector seem to be more robust for 2016 than last year.

Some 44% of agents reported them as being “strong”, compared with 41% of agents who said the same in 2014 looking ahead to 2015. Forty-seven per cent of respondents labelled as them as “average” – the same number as last year.

Only a small number of agents are expecting to secure a large number of their annual bookings in the wave period, however. Just 4% said they anticipated 100% of their bookings would be made in the next few months. Most respondents (26%) said they anticipated making just 30% of their bookings during wave.