Voice of Luxury: Inspiring Travel managing director Lisa Smith

Strengthening trade relationships is a key focus for Inspiring Travel amid strong post-pandemic sales growth, says Lisa Smith, chief operating officer for ITC and managing director of Inspiring Travel.

Q. ITC Travel Group is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. What initiatives are taking place to mark this milestone?

We’re planning 50 fam trips with agent partners all around the world. We want to showcase to agents some of the destinations they might not currently be selling with us. In addition, we’re offering airport lounge access for holidaymakers in Barbados and have a special offer running at Fairmont Royal Pavilion on the island with 50% off accommodation. We’re going to keep the celebrations going for a full year.

Q. How are trade sales tracking for 2024?

Our trade sales were slower to bounce back after the pandemic but are now performing really well, making up about 40% of our business. The team have been doing some excellent engagement with our partners, meaning many of our high-value, multi-generational bookings are coming to us through the trade.

Q. Where are you seeing the most demand?

The demand for experiential travel and unique holidays that aren’t easy to replicate are where we are showing our real strengths. We invest heavily in sending our people overseas and ensuring our sales team know the product, so they can make personalised recommendations. For example, we sent two team members to New Zealand for a month, which has allowed them to create some beautiful itineraries.

We recently had an enquiry for a flight-only booking to New Zealand and Australia, which turned into a £70,000 booking because the customer could see the value in what we can create, and the skills, knowledge and passion of our consultants.

Q. Which destinations are selling well?

Despite seeing a slight slowdown in bookings for Europe, it remains popular, with growth in tailor-made holidays to Spain and Portugal that combine coasts and cities. The Caribbean is performing better than last year, with Barbados popular, as well as lesser-known islands. We’re putting together itineraries to focus on island-hopping and giving customers an experience they wouldn’t think of themselves.

Q. Inspiring Travel has diversified its product offering in the past year, recently adding short-break options in Europe and a ski portfolio last September. Why were these areas you wanted to expand in?

Feedback from our trade partners told us that our Europe portfolio wasn’t quite hitting the spot – we felt as if we were missing opportunities. We restructured the team to give us the capability to focus on building out our European offering and developing our ski portfolio, as this was another area our trade partners wanted that we didn’t have available. We’re constantly listening, looking at the market and adapting.

Q. What else is new on the product front?

We’re creating a portfolio to showcase the increasing number of beautiful residences and villas that are being built. These higher-end properties obviously have a higher price tag, and come with seclusion and services such as private chefs. We’re pulling that together to send out to the trade shortly, to show them what they could be missing. Due to the pressure in the market currently, we are also seeing more demand for affordable luxury. So we’re putting that together as well, to showcase properties and experiences that are better value but still with high-end quality and service.

Q. What is your trade strategy for 2024?

The trade is a massively valuable part of the business, so we’re focusing on setting ourselves up as well as we can to foster those relationships. We held a workshop with our sales consultants and trade partnerships team to look at managing relationships through staying in touch, offers and promotions, and how to help generate enquiries. We want to be able to help our trade partners attract new customers and to work collaboratively, so strengthening those relationships is a huge focus for us.

Q. What would you say to agents who don’t work with you currently?

Who are you looking to attract and why should they book with Inspiring Travel? If you want that 24/7 care and attention – as well as inspiration, expertise and personalised relationships – then give us a go. We can find the right consultants with the specialist expertise for the destinations you’re looking for. If you’re looking for inspiration and itineraries you can’t necessarily package together easily yourself, then talk to us. We’re doing more and more to work on what we can do that is differentiated.