Sarah Weetman, head of trade sales at parent company All Leisure Holidays, said the operator had seen a 12% rise in travel agent bookings since April for 2016.
The average selling price of a Travelsphere trip is typically around £2,000 when bought through an agent, compared with £1,700 direct, and Weetman said she was hopeful the trade would get behind the new brochure.
Weetman said: “Customers are going to agents as they have the training, knowledge and experience, and are excellent at upselling, selling additions and doing flight upgrades.
“A customer goes to an agent because they trust them. The trade is still quite a small channel [accounting for 15% of total sales] but we are actually growing it which is exciting.”
To help regional travel agents, the operator has added more regional departures while a grid at the front of the new brochure shows which tours fly out of each regional airport.
The programme also includes 20 new long-haul itineraries and 33 new trips in Europe.
Of the new long-haul tours, Weetman said the Pandaw River Cruise (pictured) was the first one to be offered by the operator in Burma. “We’ve seen a lot more interest,” she added. “The cruise sails through the heart of Burma and goes into areas and villages that are really removed from today’s modern world. It allows our customers to take a snap shot of what life is like in that destination.”
Elsewhere, the operator is now offering five escorted tours to Africa with a return to Kenya, following a decision in November by the FCO to lift an advisory against travelling to much of the country’s coastline.
“It is a mix of that and what our customers tell us in their feedback,” Weetman said. “We’ve gone back as people were asking when they could.”
She added that Kenya’s growing popularity was also being mirrored across much of the continent, adding that she believed Africa could be a popular destination for 2016.
