Escorted tour operator Titan Travel has reported a dramatic switch in booking patterns during lockdown.
The operator’s UK short breaks and European river cruising holidays are now its best-selling tours for new trade bookings.
Titan said that before lockdown, agents were booking its long-haul tours, with India’s Golden Triangle, Essence of Japan and Southern Sights and Sounds among those most booked at the beginning of 2020.
“This quickly changed between 1 April and 1 July 2020 with UK short breaks and European river cruises topping Titan’s best-selling list,” it said.
Edwina Coppock, Titan’s head of trade sales, said: “Lockdown undoubtedly changed the way travellers were thinking about future holidays and for the first time in Titan history our UK tours were outselling our long-haul product.
“Agents have done an incredible job at responding to this change and have suggested tours that otherwise may never have been considered by their clients pre-Covid in order to secure a new booking.
“As international travel slowly begins to resume we’re seeing more agents booking long-haul holidays, with Canada, the USA and Asia booking particularly well, and we expect this to continue as the year goes on.
We will continue to support our trade partners as best we can and hope the new policies we have introduced will help agents secure many new bookings going forward.”