Speaking to TTG on Friday (10 June), Marion Owen, owner of Hull-based agency Marion Owen Travel, said "a lot" of people’s budgets are "much higher" than they used to be.
"They are very open to upgrades if we suggest them," she added. "A customer came in and upgraded his accommodation from a balcony cabin to a junior suite.
"Our head is firmly above the water we have nice bookings coming in. Cruise has been very good this week, as has Jersey because you don’t need a passport or Covid tests to enter. We do a lot of UK bookings and a lot of groups, all in all we’re doing well in those areas.
"I would like to see some more forward bookings, 2023 onwards, but on the whole we’re delighted."
Despite the positive business outlook, Owen said the agency is still facing issues with supplier call-wait times. "We feel powerless," she continued. "We’re putting hours of work in to dealing with amendments and last-minute changes for little to no payback."
"If suppliers and airlines were able to better do their job, it would cut down so much work, it would be unbelievable."
Elsewhere, Amanda Matthews, owner of Designer Travel, said the agency is doing "exceptionally well" and customers are booking longer holidays.
"Instead of a week they might be extending it to 10 days," she said. "Taking more than one holiday which most of our clients do anyway, there’s a lot of two big holidays instead of one big one and a few little ones.
"We’ve been trading at almost 80% to 100% of pre-pandemic levels so far this year, which I put down to our approach during the pandemic, as we always looked for the opportunity to get people away and travelling, we were very proactive and got a lot of other people’s customers during that period and now clients who booked with us are rebooking."
Matthews also reported an uptick in late bookings, with 65% of the agency’s current business being for travel for the end of September. Popular destinations include Spain, Greece and Turkey.
Meanwhile, Gemma Antrobus, owner of Haslemere Travel, reported an increase in long-haul bookings to destinations such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Africa and South Africa.
"A lot of it is just people wanting to go on their wish list holidays," she told TTG.
"We are seeing people plan for January and February next year and a quite a lot of Christmas departures. Capacity is ok. We are still holding our breath in some situations. We are checking departure boards daily.
"The Maldives is absolutely rammed in front-end flights. Premium flights are sold up, there is plenty of choice out there to get to the places like Australia, people just need to think outside the box - connecting flights for example.
"All of our business class clients continue to fly business, if not first class in some cases, and some of our economy fliers are going to premium economy."
