Third-party agents and independents have become Tui’s fastest-growing sales channel in the UK and Ireland over the past year, and sales and marketing director Bart Quinton Smith insists there is no upper limit on Tui’s ambitions.

Tui confirmed plans to re-engage the trade two years ago, and now has a trade team of 17 working with more than 2,000 independents. "I think it’s fair to say we’re really happy with how it’s gone," Quinton Smith tells TTG.

"It’s [trade] been our fastest-growing sales channel over the past year or so. The response has been overwhelmingly positive – we’re genuinely here to stay, and we want to keep building and earning trust."

Evolution, not revolution

Quinton Smith points towards Tui’s investment in training, its new trade hub, and its fam and educationals programme, which took more than 800 agents away between March 2024 and March 2025, as examples of what he describes as a "genuine commitment" to independents.

"A lot of it is evolution rather than revolution," says Quinton Smith "So for me, it’s continuing a lot of what Neil [Swanson, now Tui managing director UK and Ireland] was doing, but putting my own spin on it."

He says it is Tui’s "curated" product that is increasingly setting the brand apart. "We’re still famous for our core product like Tui Blue. We’ve just announced our 500th core hotel. Tui Airways is a massive part of this too – most people will still go on holiday on a Tui aircraft."

However, he also stresses Tui’s more flexible, "marketplace" approach, with 46 partner airlines – including Ryanair – and a focus on dynamic packaging, is paying dividends for agents too. "What we’re doing is adding flexibility and range, and I think people have been pleasantly surprised," he notes.

"We’re adding more and more hotels, including more hotels in cities – we have more than 60 cities on sale now. Experiences is another area where we’re seeing really strong growth."

Quinton Smith highlights the example of an agent in Cornwall who came to Tui’s senior trade relations manager Holly Wood asking the operator to put dynamic packages on sale out of Newquay, which is served by Ryanair and KLM. "All of a sudden, we’re having quite different conversations with partners across the country."

He continues: "My role also involves marketing, so that’s part of the journey we’ll go on with customers and colleagues. We’ll also need to work to deliver what’s needed in local markets."

Quinton Smith says Tui’s trade hub, launched in January, had been designed to help independents become more familiar with its curated product. "We know there’s a lot for agents to know and understand," he admits, before adding: "The trade hub’s there to draw out those key differences between our products."

’Transparency’

For Quinton Smith and Tui, the sky is the limit for this renewed relationship. "We certainly haven’t got any internal ceiling or limit for what we want to achieve," he explains. "Ultimately, we want to grow, and I think independent, third-party agents can play a really key role in that."

He says Tui will guard against complacency. "Maintaining that more intimate service and that relationship with the trade is quite crucial," Quinton Smith continues. "You can get really big and then you end up losing because there’s such individual need across the trade.

"I think the team feel really comfortable with where they are, with those relationships and that back and forth feedback. We can’t deliver on everything they [agents] want, but I think that transparency and those personal connections mean we can have a good conversation about it all.

"We see a lot of it as being incremental. So yes, we sell through the app and online, but we see certain customers wanting to book through independent agents. Different customers behave in different ways, and we think it’s right to be there wherever and however they want to book a Tui holiday."

Quinton Smith reveals independents and third-parties are becoming a bigger part of Tui’s overall sales mix as its fastest growing channel, but declines to discuss specifics. "We’re really happy with where it’s at," he says. "We think we can keep growing that channel, and we’d be delighted for it to.

"Agents are so much better placed to sell the additional products as well," he adds. "The ancillaries, the insurance, that sort of thing. I think there’s an interesting role agents can play as opposed to the app or online where people can think, ’I’ll do that later’.

"Whereas in a face-to-face interaction, agents are best placed to talk to customer about these additional things, and that becomes really convenient and important to their holidays."

’Genuine commitment’

Tui has come in for criticism in the past for cosying up to agents when it suits, only to subsequently distance itself again.

Views among agents were mixed when Tui, in August 2023, confirmed it would be expanding its trade team to increase the number of agents it could serve, something it extended in November that same year.

When pressed, Quinton Smith insists Tui’s partnership with the trade is genuine and long-term.

"We are here to stay, that’s the truth. We are seeing really strong growth, why would we turn away from that? We understand people [agents] have long memories, but we’re here to stay and we want to keep building their trust.

"We’re doing that with our [trade] team of 17. That’s a genuine commitment, as is the investment in training and in our trade hub. It makes business sense for us and hopefully a lot of sense for agents too. That’s definitely the feedback we’re getting from them."