Head of agency sales Julie Franklin told TTG that while no firm plans were yet in place for a winter 2021/22 fam programme, Lapland and several Alpine ski destinations would likely feature.
"We’re going to look at some fam trips for this winter," she said. "We’ve not established quite where yet, but we’re looking at Switzerland, France and other options. But there will some fam trips, for Lapland and ski."
Franklin said with around 75% of Inghams’ Lapland business coming from the trade, including that of stablemate Santa’s Lapland, it was important to refresh agents’ knowledge of the trips.
"Lapland is really strong with the trade," she said, adding that more broadly, agents could in future expect some changes to Inghams’ winter product to place a greater focus on experiences.
She said from a ski perspective, her team’s initial focus would be on specialists, those who "eat, breathe, sleep and dream ski", adding more focus would shift to the high street and homeworkers when it came to promoting summer.
It comes as the Inghams’ trade team prepare to get back on the road in the coming weeks and months. "We’re seeing new agents coming forward wanting to work with us," said Franklin. ’Who was strong for us in 2019 might have changed for 2021."
Franklin also told agents to look out for updates to Inghams’ trade resources, including an updated agent toolkit, more online training, and access to more image banks, as well as destination-specific flyers.
The brand’s ski guide has also been updated with new sales tools. "Our agent hub is evolving all the time," said Franklin. "I think the high street struggles to sell ski sometimes, so our focus has been more on the tools agents need to do that."
Franklin was speaking at the launch of Inghams’ winter 2021/22 Elevate Your Winter campaign where Joe Ponte, chief executive of Inghams parent Hotelplan UK, revealed sales in the two weeks to the event on Tuesday (18 October) were up 35% on same period in 2019.
