That was according to The Adventure Travel Survey 2017, the findings of which were unveiled on stage during the conference.

The survey, which was undertaken in December last year, quizzed more than 2,500 UK travel consumers, 50 tour operators and 11 tourist boards.

The resulting report found that despite the geopolitical uncertainty caused by the Brexit process, a Donald Trump presidency and increased fears over terrorism, more than 82% of tour operators expected business this year to be “better [than] or the same” as the previous one.

The report also found almost 53% of operators had taken more forward bookings at the time of the survey than in 2015 despite ongoing economic fluctuations.

Presenting the report at the conference, Danny Callaghan, operations director at Wanderlust Travel Media, said the figures were “encouraging” for the trade.

The report also found that 67% of operators were planning to introduce new itineraries in 2017, while 65% had added new destinations to their programmes in 2016.

“That figure shows that there’s a lot of confidence in the market and a desire by operators to make things happen,” Callaghan said.

In addition, 44% of the consumers questioned said their costs on travel would be increasing in 2017 and that it would be as a result of travelling more rather than increased prices.

Just under half of the operators questioned could foresee increasing their prices by between 10-20% this year due to a decrease in the value of sterling following June’s Brexit vote and 71% said they had not implemented “specific precautions” in the run-up to the EU referendum.

Close to 50% said they deemed their foreign exchange strategy to be “sufficient” following the vote.