These were some of the statistics from Bruce Martin, founder of social media consultant Ginger Juice.

Speaking at the Global Travel Group conference in Dubai, he urged agents to ensure that their social media posts were interesting and filled with personality to ensure that they were engaging with consumers, rather than turning them away.

It came as he revealed that 88% of Global Travel Group members have a Facebook page. “Be personal, post things about your agency that is friendly, because these are the posts that do much better than others,” he said.

“Share local experiences and inject personality – put yourselves in front of the camera. People buy from people,” he added.

Meanwhile Darren Hepburn, sales director of email marketing agency NewZapp told delegates to examine their marketing e-shots carefully to ensure they were not being lost in spam filters.

“The image to text ratio needs to be a 60/40 balance to get through the filters,” he said. “Don’t send emails yourself from your own outlook – use an email provider, you won’t be recognised and authenticated otherwise.

“Send specific emails to targeted people – irrelevant emails are worse than sending emails too often. And spend as much time on the subject line as the content of the email itself.

“And make sure your emails are no longer than an A4 piece of paper,” he added. “Think of your email as a taxi – it’s the start of the journey, you are taking the client somewhere else, ideally to your website.”