These were among the key findings from TTG’s first Travel Agent Tracker report of the year, which returns for 2023 in a new quarterly format – designed to look ahead to a more prosperous future and leave the leave Covid firmly in the rear-view mirror.

Launched in April 2020 as a weekly survey monitoring the trade’s response to the pandemic, the Tracker has evolved into an essential barometer for agents, suppliers and industry professionals, offering valuable insight direct from agents.

The shift to a quarterly schedule was directly informed by feedback from agents to reflect the leisure travel sector’s emergence from the pandemic, while continuing to track trade sales activity and destination trends, and explore the interactions agents are having with clients and suppliers.

Read the Q1 report here

Almost seven in 10 respondents (69%) to the first quarterly survey, covering the period from 1 January to 31 March 2023, said they felt either very (33%) or quite (36%) optimistic about Q2, while 85% said they felt their business was in a better or stronger place than it was a year earlier.

"Our conversion rate is higher than it has ever been," said one respondent. Another said "peaks hasn’t stopped", while a third said people were spending more. "It’s getting busier and busier – I’m excited for the challenges ahead."

Most encouragingly, several respondents remarked on the heightened demand and regard for agents. "People want to travel, and are coming back to professionals to help navigate issues with passports, strikes, etc, and to know someone is looking after them," said one agent.

Nearly four in five respondents (79%) said they took more new enquiries during Q1 2023 than they did in Q1 2022, while more than three-quarters (76%) said they made more new sales and took more new bookings than they did in the first quarter of 2022.

The Tracker survey charts more than 25 data points, ranging from sales activity such a rates of new business, repeats and conversions, average sales price and spend, discounting and other business trends, to the biggest issues facing agents, which sectors and destinations are performing well, and when people are booking.

In addition, the survey explores agents’ relationships with suppliers and their ability to serve agents in a timely fashion, with each of the remaining three surveys of the year set to feature a range of topical questions, such as the value agents place on fam trips and face-to-face supplier contact, and rates of pay in travel.

TTG news editor James Chapple said: "TTG has been engaging with hundreds of agents personally via the Tracker for more than three years now, and we’re aware of just what an important outlet and source of reassurance it has been for many of them.

"We polled respondents several times last year on what they wanted to see from a revamped survey, and we were delighted with the response to the Q1 edition. The Q2 survey will drop towards the end of June, and we look forward to bringing the trade more insights in the summer."