Cross said agents needed to be brave and invest in their businesses post-Covid, with the conference in the Algarve over 14-17 November revolving around a theme of "Who Dares Wins".

With Jet2holidays’ Atol for the year to the end of September 2023 now standing at 5.3 million authorisations, neck and neck with rival Tui, Cross said his team would stand shoulder to shoulder with agents to help them maximise their sales and their role in helping Jet2 achieve this.

"During Covid, everyone was trying to work with their hands and feet tied," said Cross. "That’s no longer the case – the handcuffs are off now. What we’re going into now is business as usual in an environment where we have costs, bills and other pressures increasing.

"The past couple of years have been tough, but the next few years – we believe – are going to be even tougher. When we say that, it’s not all doom and gloom – if you sit back and do nothing, nothing is going to happen. There are still a lot of agents out there not being proactive enough.

"There are also certain ones who have really come up through the ranks from nowhere, some agents really are having the best years they’ve ever had. They’re capitalising because their competitors aren’t.

"What we mean [with Who Dares Wins] is those agents who challenge themselves and face their fears will be the ones to succeed. That’s the message we’re trying to get across to agents. I talk about ‘business as usual’. The way agents used to do it was to fight for every booking. And we do the same. They have to get their spark back again."

Cross urged agents – both high street and non-retail agents – to play to their strengths and market themselves on the basis of the service, advice and professionalism they can provide, and to remember it was increasingly OTAs that were their biggest rivals.

"They’re starting to wake up to this fact," Cross continued. "It’s a market they’ve never really tried to combat. They’ve almost accepted it. You might have an agency 500 yards this way or that, but I’d urge them to remember the OTAs out there."

Cross also revealed Jet2holidays had invested in a new CRM system for the trade team during Covid to help them track and manage key accounts. "A lot of what we’ve done is about working smarter," he said. "Rather than run around like headless chickens, we wanted to identify the return on X, Y or Z."

This, he said, would also allow Jet2 to provide better insights for agents who are willing to work closely with the operator. "We have key accounts, large and small, who get market trends from us like what was the biggest seller in the past week – nights, all-inclusive, four-star, five-star.

"We tell them, ‘go and look at your window’. It might be 50% of it is two-star seven nights. They’ve got to market to what the customers want – to advise, support and recommend on this basis is worth its weight in gold. This is what we mean about being proactive."

Cross added he was seeing more agency owners investing in their businesses and returning to the frontline, describing the tangible buzz he has experienced in agencies. "They’re passionate, they’re hungry to get the sales," he said.

"Towards the end of Covid, I saw a lot of people – agency owners – stepping back. Perhaps they brought a manager in, moved behind the scenes and let the staff run the business. They’re now stepping forward again.

"The spark might have gone, and you can understand why with everything they’ve been dealing with. When customers are walking through the door, when they’re face-to-face, they’ve been a bit heads down rather than heads up.

"The conference is about getting their heads up again."