The Gold Medal parent also claimed a 50% increase in the number of calls from agents compared to the same period in 2022, saying it was handling levels of trade enquiries “not seen since before the pandemic”.
Bookings for the US, particularly the west coast and Caribbean, are currently accounting for nearly half of business at Gold Medal, with a three-fold sales increase against 2022 as Florida, Thailand, Dubai, New York and Mauritius prove popular.
Pure Luxury’s Travel Trends 2023 campaign has helped to fuel a 50% year-on-year increase in sales as Dubai, Maldives, Barbados, Spain and Bali make up the luxury brand’s top-performing destinations.
Meanwhile, dnata claimed its Cruise Plus brand had seen bookings increase by 400% against the previous year with sailings around Florida, the Caribbean, Canada and Alaska leading the way.
Average booking values for the brand are also up 50% on 2022, with Celebrity Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises proving to be the most in-demand lines.
Dnata also highlighted the investment it had made in its touring and adventure brand Incredible Journeys during 2022, with the creation of a dedicated sales team and recruitment of a product and commercial manager, “paying real dividends”.
The brand surpassed its January 2022 business in three days of trading this year and is currently taking double the number of trade enquiries with the demand strongest for South America, Australia, Africa and India.
Dnata said a “notable trend” its brands had seen emerging early into peaks was late booking, with Gold Medal and Pure Luxury seeing January and February 2023 among their most popular departure months (20% and 30% of departures for all new bookings taken).
Dnata Travel Group B2B managing director, Simon Applebaum, said its brands were “enjoying an extremely promising start” to peaks.
“The investment we’ve made in recruiting and training up our contact centre team over the last 12 months is also making a big difference,” he said.
“We have a team of more than 100 agents processing volumes of calls each day that we’ve not seen since before the pandemic, so wait times are also the lowest they’ve been for several years as well.”
