Sales via these channels made up 23% of total transactions in 2021. They totalled £6.8million, 13% per cent ahead of the best-performing year pre-pandemic.
 
Facebook dominated social media sales for the 165-plus homeworkers, with bookings via Instagram “growing steadily”.

The homeworkers also found social media effective in attracting new customers, with 65% of sales through social media coming from customers who had not previously booked with a Your Co-op affiliated PTA.

Sheena Whittle, Head of The Personal Travel Agents, said: “Over the last five years we’ve developed a real understanding of what works on social media and by using this knowledge we’ve done really well working with supplier partners on specific offers curated especially for social channels. 
 
“We invest heavily in supporting agents with building their businesses through social media, with workshop training sessions, personal coaching, the opportunity to have centrally generated posts on their behalf and a full suite of daily offers and campaign assets to use.”

Top-selling destinations via social media posts were the UK, Santorini, Majorca and the Maldives. 
 
Agents also said UK “seacations” had gained “a lot of traction” during summer 2021 as customers saw PTAs holiday on UK-based cruise ships and experienced the cruise via photos, Stories and Live broadcasts. 

Similarly, Lapland adventures for both December 2022 and 2023 “stood out as a top seller during peaks 2022” as agents went on trips and garnered interest among followers and customers.