"Please bear with us," was the message from the luxury specialist on Monday (18 October) as it confirmed its expansion plans, stressing the team team was "working tirelessly" to service agents’ calls and emails. Four "experienced" individuals will join the team over the coming weeks.

"We are currently placing all our resources into our frontline sales team to ensure we are getting to agents calls and enquiries as quickly as possible in the short-term before welcoming new staff members in the coming weeks," said If Only.

General manager Gordon McCreadie said: "We are delighted to be in the position of employing new staff and bringing existing staff back. Their knowledge is invaluable to us at this time, and I’m looking forward to seeing them in the office.

"It’s been a tough 18 months for our industry, and I’m thrilled to be in the position to be recruiting, a position just a few months, even weeks ago, I could never have imagined we would be in."

McCreadie said If Only wanted to thank agents for their continued support, and asked them for their patience. "I know call wait times have been longer than normal over the past few weeks," he admitted.

"With the positive changes to Day 2 PCR tests to lateral flow tests and further changes to the Covid biosecurity measures in the UK and all around the world, making international travel easier and more safe, we hope this much-needed boost to our mutual long-haul luxury sales will continue well into 2022," said McCreadie.

"This will, however, continue to result in spikes in calls at certain times of the day. We hope with our four new experienced team members joining us in the next few weeks in positions across the business, that they will further reduce our call wait times and will help meet unprecedented agent demand."

If Only has, though, warned of price increases owing to demand, including for half-term and the key festive holiday periods. "We are asking agents to be realistic with customers in regards to their budgets and to emphasise the need to try get bookings confirmed as soon as possible to stop customers being disappointed after a very tough 18 months."