Managing director Laurence Hicks said the recent decision to recruit an additional two business development managers, bringing the total number to five, has allowed them to visit even more agents across the country.

And by offering more focused training on the visits, he believes, agents are becoming better informed and more confident in making bookings.

Hicks said: "For the first time in 12 months we’re seeing a resurgence in our agency bookings. I don’t know if that is because I’ve increased the number of BDMs but we’ve insisted that our BDMs are more focused on talking to a smaller amount of agents (on the visit) but the training is actually very focused."

He added the operator has also increased the amount of marketing partnerships with traditional partners to strong effect while new sales platforms and partnerships outside the traditional trade channels are also driving sales.

Hicks said: "Travel agents are still 55% of our business and they’re huge to us... but we have to look beyond them if we’re to give our product the broadest distribution."

Of all the destinations featured by the operator, he said Japan was the fastest growing, adding: "I can’t get enough beds in Japan, everybody is screaming for Japan product ."