Most travel agencies were “disappointed” but “not surprised” by Virgin’s decision and criticised the operator for a lack of trade support in recent years, which has led sales through agents to drop to “less than 10%” of total bookings.

Garstang Travel in Lancashire even went as far as to put all its Virgin brochures straight in the bin following the announcement by the operator that it wanted to “add more value for the customer” by axing trade sales.

Advantage Travel Partnership managing director Julia Lo Bue-Said branded Virgin’s move “an insult” to agents and “severely questioned the commercial sense in the move”.

Garstang director Nicole Eaves said the agency had immediately started switch-selling from that day and would not be promoting Virgin Holidays’ products. “I’m certain that hundreds of agents are doing the same thing,” she added. “We have plenty of other amazing partners who offer us support in abundance and value our expertise and the business we do for them. They will be the winners from this, and Virgin could be the losers.”

Making a statement

Anneka Bones, from Southern Cross Travel in Kent, said: “It seems like another way to undercut prices and go against the trade. But I don’t think it will work as other companies will come back to working with agents.

“It’s a shame because Virgin is such a big name in the industry. Richard Branson is basically making a statement against the people who have worked hard to sell his holidays.”

Sharon Munro, chief executive of Barrhead Travel, said there were “plenty” of alternative operators to sell instead of Virgin, which had already been communicated to staff.

“We are obviously disappointed because we have been working with Virgin for some time and it was a strong partnership,” she said. “They are not the tour operator’s customers, they are Barrhead Travel customers and we sell the holiday that’s right for them. They have travelled with Virgin because we made that recommendation.”

Consortia bosses also stressed the importance of working with operators who supported the trade.

“Virgin’s decision hasn’t come as a surprise and comes when the statistics tell the trade they have already stopped supporting them in volume,” said Gary Lewis, group managing director of The Travel Network Group. “It simply reinforces our own strategy for independent distribution and we are supporting those suppliers that support us.”

Disappointing

Global Travel Group managing director Andy Stark called the news “disappointing for the industry”.

“But it is a great opportunity for agents to take stock and consider who is the right partner for their business,” he added.

While the move might have angered agents, operators revelled in the news. Travel 2 and Gold Medal managing director Andy Freeth immediately tweeted: “I feel a surge of growth coming our way, I’ll start staffing up accordingly to meet the needs of the independent agent community! #tradeonly.”

Meanwhile, Kuoni used an advert in this week’s TTG to mock Virgin’s decision. Managing director Derek Jones also wrote a comment piece, insisting that he remained “absolutely convinced that it’s not necessary to be ‘trade only’ to be trade friendly”.

“Virgin’s decision is helpful to Kuoni – highlighting once and for all that we’re not the same. We never were… Abandoning agents is not just the way it’s going; it’s just the way Virgin Holidays is going.”