Saga began selling via the trade four years ago, with trade sales forming 11% of its holidays business and 7% of cruise in 2017.

In the early part of 2018, Saga said structural changes and an increased team size brought “renewed focus to travel agent partnerships”.

Saga announced today (August 31) year-on-year trade sales growth in excess of 30% for its holidays business and 80% for cruise.

The company said the growth was driven by “significant demand for long-haul touring products, bolstered by the recent launch of its long-haul brochure” and, for cruise, by the first of two new-build boutique cruise ships, Spirit of Discovery.

Head of trade sales, Iain Powell, said: “I’m incredibly excited by the results we are seeing through the trade.

“We’ve spoken at length around the importance of travel agents in growing our business and the support we’ve received has been quite overwhelming.

“We will continue to invest in this channel and have lots of exciting developments planned in the remainder of 2018 and into next year.”

Head of long-haul product, Joe Sutcliffe, added: “We’ve released lots of new and exciting products in the last few months, many of which form part of our new brochure, so I’m not surprised there is significant customer interest.

“Travel agents are experts at matching customers to the right holiday and so far they’ve done an incredible job for us at Saga.”