Trade sales for Elegant Resorts up 10% year on year

Trade sales for Elegant Resorts are up 10% year on year according to the luxury operator’s managing director.

Lisa Fitzell praised national account manager Katie Daniels, who joined the brand last November, for doing a “phenomenal job” with agent partnerships in 2024.

“We’re up 10% on last year for agents and going into next year, [agent sales are] worth 25% for 2025,” Fitzell said.

It comes after Elegant Resorts unveiled a new loyalty programme for top-performing agents last week. The Connoisseurs Club features two tiers - Connoisseur Gold and Connoisseur Platinum - with qualifying agents receiving a range of benefits including guaranteed places on Elegant Resorts fam trips, dedicated dual-branded marketing brochures and priority access to the operator’s team of specialists.

Speaking at Elegant Resorts’ annual supplier awards ceremony in London on Monday (November 4), Fitzell said 2024 had been a “challenging” year.

She said: “This year has certainly been a challenge. The economic uncertainty, change of government and cost of living have meant it has been a strange year.

“We had an outstanding beginning of the year with over 25% growth but Q2 slowed down and the summer was one of the quietest we have seen for some years. Q4 has been pretty strong with festive seeing a 25% growth. We head into next year with forward bookings up 15%.”

Fitzell said new business was up 35% compared with 2023, while high-value bookings also continued to perform well for the brand, with 38 bookings over the value of £100,000 in 2024.

But she added: “That’s down on last year. We’ve definitely seen our customers just rein it in a bit this year. We haven’t lost a lot of customers, they’re just spending less. Our average booking value has decreased from £23,000 to £21,000. They’ve definitely skipped a holiday, often the summer holiday. So really our job is about what we are going to do to get them travelling more with us again.”

Fitzell said Elegant Resorts had seen “great growth” for Asia, predominantly Thailand, as well as Australia, Barbados, New York and Miami. The Maldives is the operator’s most popular destination, with bookings up 43% this year.

Next year, Elegant Resorts will unveil an extensive brand refresh.