During an impassioned address at the ITT Conference on Monday (13 September), Dame Irene said the trend presented "an opportunity like no other" to emerge from the Covid adversity strongly.
"The current situation is a real opportunity for the high street and retail travel agents," she said. "We know online agents will come back, but we will do everything in our power to look after the 56% new customers – as well as our old customers – so they never want to leave us."
Dame Irene said, on average, just under 20% of the agency’s customers since 2017 were new to the firm. Since April 2021, that the figure has increased to 56%.
It reflects a wider trend observed during the pandemic which as seen more consumers seeking independent expert travel advice, such as from agents, with Abta in particular noting the uptick in demand.
Reflecting on the future of Hays Travel, Dame Irene said the firm would do "everything it possibly could" to grow the proportion of new customers it works with. "We will [by 2024] start to recover the balance sheet position, which is really important to us," she said.
"Secondly, we intend to do everything we possibly can to turn that 56% of new to Hays Travel to 66% and to try and retain the customers we already had and make sure the Hays Travel brand continues to grow in strength, utilising all of the skills the people in our business have because it is them who have got us through this journey."
