The villa and boutique hotel specialist announced on Tuesday (8 February) it would be upping its trade focus in 2022 with the launch of a new agent-facing brochure, the addition of 10% commission on every booking and a range of training sessions.

Naylor-Vane, who has held the role of trade lead with the operator since the beginning of 2020, said agents are a "really important part" of the firm’s ambitious future growth plans.

"This year, since 2018, we have already doubled our trade sales, but we want to double again," she said. "We want to do that over the next two or three years, but if it happens sooner, great.

"Agents are really important, they are a route market and they are a revenue stream and a really important part of growing our business."

Naylor-Vane said consumers want to book with an agent as they seek the "reassurance" of booking holidays with someone "who’s going to look after them".

"Even before the pandemic, I could see how important agents were," she added.

Simpson Travel also hopes to offer spots on fam trips on its new "special interest" holidays to a selection of agents this Spring, as well as a new online hub with promotional materials such as video and social media assets and in-house brand advertising.

Naylor-Vane, who works closely with the firm’s commercial, sales and marketing teams, has also been given the green-light to hire a new staff member to help support her in working with trade partners.

"[Fam trips] are something we are going to look at now for the Spring, I’m going to work with our commercial director to see if we can get some of our agents out on our Special Interest holidays," Nayor-Vane continued.

"We’ve just been given the go ahead to hire someone to support me as well, to help focus on even more trade initiatives.

"We are ambitious, and part of our business strategy is to focus on agents as one of our revenue streams, and we really want to grow our trade business."