Mark Delaney, managing director of Travel Circle in Preston, said: “We ended up having a really good year last year anyway – every month from February was a record-breaker – so we did expect it to come back in peaks, and it’s started off very, very well. 

“We’re probably on a par at the moment with our best-ever January in 2018. We set a target this January to equal our personal best, and touch wood we’re on track. We’ve pretty much done December’s trade in a week.”

London’s Swords Travel also enjoyed a busy weekend, reporting sales up 96% on last year for the period from 1-9 January, as did Northern Ireland’s Oasis Travel, with managing director Sandra Corkin branding it "extremely busy".

"January is off to a fantastic start," said Corkin. "Cruise enquiries are making up a higher proportion than normal [of sales], but all staff are working flat out to convert."

Not all the agents were as convinced by the “Sunshine Saturday” trend though, with Haverfordwest’s Ocky White Travel sharing its peak booking period tends to come later in January. 

Managing director Mark White said: “I anticipate this year being no different in that we gradually build up week-by-week and then we peak on the third or fourth Saturday in January, or the first in February. 

“The enquiries are coming in. People come in, they pick up brochures and have a good natter, but our booking period will peak later. It will snowball until that last week in January when it will be really busy.

“That could just be our market down here. We’re a rural environment where the pace of life is slower. It’s always been that way for us and it’s quite normal.” 

Many of the agents were continuing to see a strong lates market. Swords Travel managing director Mark Swords said: “The majority of our bookings are for the next three months. It’s interesting that people are wanting to book so late even though it’s quite pricey because demand’s so high and availability still quite low.

“Our two biggest booking periods at the moment are February half-term and April for Easter – people are just wanting to get away for winter.”

Petersfield’s Meon Valley Travel also reported strong lates enquiries, with overall bookings up between 10% to 20% over pre-Covid transactions (lower last week but strengthening this weekend onwards) and 50% of enquiries for travel in the next 12 weeks.

Delaney said Travel Circle was seeing less lates demand, though, with clients mainly booking summer “and people tending to go big”, although added the weekend just past had seen slightly lower-value holidays booked despite being very busy.

He added the family market wasn’t particularly buoyant at the moment, with more five-star properties booked for June, July and September. “The holidays we are having to discount are the family ones so the value for money’s going to be more important for the family market, whereas the couples market is just quite happy to get the quality and service they want," said Delaney.

“The majority of people coming in are saying actually their bank balance hasn’t really changed all that much. They’re not seeing a great deal of difference in their disposable income at the end of the month, and one thing they’re not going to give up is their holiday.”

Booking values up

Swords said their business was also seeing high-value enquiries and bookings. “We’ve tried to change our marketing towards something a bit different, so we’re getting tailor-made, we’re getting South America,” said Swords.

“There’s a bit more variety and stuff we can add value to as well rather than just trying to give a better price, which we can’t always do anyway.”

Meon Valley managing director James Beagrie added that average booking values were up 25%, mostly down to a higher ratio of mid- and long-haul, although Greece was still the big seller for families. 

“Conversion ratios are better than pre-Covid, and we are seeing more clients enquiring after multiple trips to secure the year’s holiday plans early rather than waiting for fear of prices go up,” he said.  

Ocky White also reported more longer-term enquiries, for example for New York in July 2024. White said he did think that after 18 months of no real booking pattern, “hopefully we’ll start to see familiar patterns”.

“From February last year, it was just crazy, it was constant,” he said. “Which was great, but I think we’ll start to see the first signs of peaks again, then a gradual drop-off, then a re-emergence of the lates market.”