After the rollercoaster that was the pandemic, the Scottish independent – one of the UK’s largest agency chains with 87 branches, has its sight firmly set on the future and brighter horizons.
“We definitely feel optimistic,” president Jacqueline Dobson tells TTG over Zoom from Barrhead’s new home in Glasgow’s St Vincent Place in late December 2022.
Barrhead left its Oswald Street base after almost 20 years in early December and relocated to heritage-listed Libertas House following a £1 million investment.
Dobson says the office, now housing its commercial, finance, business development, marketing and communication teams, provides staff “an amazing place to work” in the heart of the city with improved hybrid working opportunities.
Around the corner in Gordon Street is Barrhead’s new flagship store, which is expected to open next month housing up to 35 staff.
The store will be split across two levels with an “experience-led retail space” on the ground floor and a first floor comprising Barrhead’s specialist sales departments. There’s room too for expansion, particularly after the recent launch of Barrhead’s touring and adventure division.
“We’re really excited to be making these investments off the back of the pandemic,” Dobson enthuses. “We’ve learnt to be agile and to move quickly – there are definitely headwinds on the way, but we’re very optimistic.”
GROWTH PLAN
There’s no sense that optimism is misplaced either.
Barrhead returned to 2019 bookings volumes in April 2022 and, for the past year, 60% of sales have come from new-to-brand customers.
“Consumers are definitely coming back to agents,” says Dobson. “I do think [despite the cost of living crisis] holidays are the latest expense to go. Some people still haven’t travelled for the past three years – they want to get away.”
Dobson believes Barrhead’s customers are proving resilient to both the economic downturn and also various strikes impacting travel, with January 2023 proving the agency’s third most popular departure month for bookings made in December 2022.
Skip forward a few weeks and Dobson’s confident predictions come true as Sunshine Saturday on 7 January sees the agency surpass its previous record sales day from January 2020.
The day also contributed to an overall sales growth of 52% for the week 2-8 January for Barrhead when compared with the same period in 2019.
Demand for cruise holidays had “significantly grown” year-on-year with bookings up 200%, while Tenerife, Majorca, Lanzarote and Alicante proved the agency’s most popular destinations for land-based breaks.
Summer 2023 “dominated” sales – accounting for more than 60% of holidays sold that week – but also Barrhead reported late departures were “holding strong” with more than one-in-five new bookings due to depart between January and April.
All-inclusive holidays represented more than a quarter of bookings so far in January, while longer durations were on the rise, with 10 nights or longer making up 45% of new bookings.
Such demand bodes well as the business seeks to keep its pre-pandemic growth ambitions on track after opening three stores in the past 12 months.
"We did have a growth plan [pre-Covid], and that’s where we still want to go. There’s nothing committing us to saying, ’we’ll open 20 stores next year’ – it’s dependent on different factors – but it’s definitely on the horizon. If certain locations come up, we’ll definitely have a look at them."
EMPLOYEES FIRST
Dobson has been a passionate advocate for Britain’s high streets, and called for government action to encourage investment in towns.
"The high street is still very much our strategy,” Dobson continues. “We will definitely be looking at new stores, and also at relocating stores in 2023."
The approach, she says, has proved successful with Barrhead’s Dundee branch, with its Silverburn store also set to move. “We want the right locations and nicer environments for employees to work,” Dobson insists. “At Barrhead, we always prioritise our people.”
Over the past two years, the company has delivered more than 16,000 hours of training to help staff develop new skills, while its focus on wellbeing has been “accelerated” with five dedicated mental health first aid trainers and a further 50 staff trained to focus on mental health within stores.
Nurturing the next generation of Barrhead agents is also a priority for Dobson; Barrhead relaunched its apprenticeship programme last summer. “It’s performing fantastically for us,” she reveals. “The industry has struggled because it hasn’t recruited young people during Covid. They’ll soon be fully fledged agents. I think the industry is changing its mindset – that’s helping ease the issues.”
Barrhead is also investing in technology; a new website launched early last year boosted customer conversions by 150%, while upgrades for its cruise websites are on the way, along with more administrative automation, highlighting Barrhead’s focus on the future across all parts of its business.
