TORONTO — When you’re launching the biggest sale of the year, just how big do you go?

Up to 40%, if you’re Transat. 

The company’s highly-anticipated Early Booking Bonus (EBB), which launched last week on May 22, is its biggest sale of the year, with up to 40% off per package, a Price Drop Guarantee of up to $200 per adult, reduced deposit of $100 per person, a Future Travel Credit of $50 per adult, and 25% off Option Flex Standard. Plus, new this year, Transat is offering the extra bonus of 3% off at high-end leather accessories retailer Lambert for the first 5,000 reservations. 

Even more, travel advisors receive 10X BONBON per booking, which means $50 per room for travel from Quebec, and 5X BONBON, which amounts to $25 per room for travel from Ontario and the Maritimes. Advisors also get a chance to win one of five South packages for two, which will be drawn every week of the promotion, as well as a luggage kit from Lambert.

The promotion applies to new individual bookings of Transat’s South packages made by June 28, 2024, for travel between Sept. 1, 2024 and April 30, 2025. And though it runs only for a limited time, the bookings generated from this sale alone is massive, says Nicole Bursey, Transat’s Commercial Director.

“We looked at what impact the sale has on our winter South business, and for some agencies up to 15% of their total business is booked during this period. So it makes a big difference for travel agents and travel agencies that are proactive. They can really get a great start to the year,” Bursey tells Travelweek.

Nearly all of Transat’s South inventory is included in the promotion, adds Bursey, which is great news for travel advisors. But with pandemic-related inventory issues still a fairly recent memory, can advisors book Transat product with confidence, knowing that supply will meet demand?

“Everything is good now, we don’t have inventory issues at hotels like we used to in the past,” says Bursey. “In terms of getting exactly what you want, the early booking promotion does play into that, especially for key periods like Christmas, New Year’s and March Break. If booking early, you’re going to get the best price for high-value and high in-demand vacations.”

BOOKING WINDOWS

With the promotion running only until June 28, for travel between September and April, we asked Bursey what she’s noticed about booking windows in the aftermath of COVID-19. When travel first started to resume in 2021 following a near-global shutdown in March 2020, booking windows shrank down to just a few weeks, with Canadians desperate to get away. But have windows returned to normal?

“There doesn’t seem to be a ‘normal,’ I would say, because at one point bookings were being made nicely in advance and a lot of people were protecting that advanced purchase by buying our Option Flex, which gives that extra measure of flexibility,” says Bursey. “But now for the summer period, we are finding that people are going back to waiting and booking quite close in, even for Europe, which is surprising because Europe was certainly not a last-minute market in the past. Perhaps the economy is playing into that a little bit.”

As for advanced sales for the winter period, Bursey says groups in particular are off to a good start, with destination weddings rebounding to pre-pandemic levels. About half of Transat groups sales, she says, are part of a destination wedding. 

THE RETURN OF COST SENSITIVITY

People are back to travelling, that’s for certain. But while luxury travel saw a huge boost post-pandemic, with people “booking the best of the best” after being denied travel for so long and saving a significant amount of money during the pandemic, Bursey says she’s seeing the return of cost sensitivity among clients. 

“And that’s okay,” she says, “because we’ve got a full range of product. For people who still want that five-star suite experience, we’ve got that. If somebody wants something that’s a little less expensive, there are always great options in Cuba, Puerto Plata and more. Transat has got such a wide product line that we can address these changing preferences very easily.”

TRAVEL ADVISOR TOOLS

Noting how educating travel advisors remains one of Transat’s “greatest responsibilities,” Bursey encourages all advisors to continue to watch out for its webinars.

“We’re happy to do the webinars and the sales team would also love to hear if there’s a certain topic that we’re not covering. Just let us know and we’ll work that into our schedule,” says Bursey. “The lines of communication work both ways and we’re happy to hear from them. The sales team exists to support the travel advisor community.”

Bursey adds that webinars are now available about the new early booking promotion “to make sure that everybody’s well aware of the details and highlight how they can use this to help kickstart their year.” 

Bursey also notes that Transat continues to work on its self-serve options for advisors, an approach taken by many tour operators during the height of the pandemic as a way to reduce long call centre wait times. She tells Travelweek that long wait times have pretty much been resolved.

“There’s still an effort by the tour operator and airline to make sure that we’ve got the right tools in the hands of advisors, so they can still avoid calling the call centre,” says Bursey. “We continue to assess at the call centre, which has great reporting on why people are calling in. We look at the data and ask ourselves, ‘What can we develop so that these particular calls are no longer needed?’ 

“If anything, the pandemic really made us better at this because there’s more collaboration between the different departments, to make sure that we’re working on the right tools.”

THE FORECAST

When asked how the most recent winter season played out for Transat in terms of bookings, Bursey says the company saw good results – though not perfect by any means.

“It wasn’t great, but we did see good results at a time when we managed to make some pretty good changes, like increasing capacity by a fair bit. We started our Atlantic program in December, which usually wouldn’t start until February, plus we’re still investing in markets,” she says. 

Looking ahead to the summer, the forecast looks even promising, with Transat having “huge strength” in Europe. And though it’s still early days to assess winter 2024-2025, Bursey says indicators are looking good.

“We just have to understand that the trends we saw in 2023 might not continue into 2024 and 2025. We have to be agile and see how the Canadian market adapts to a true post-pandemic period because in 2023, we were still feeling the booming effects of ‘revenge travel.’ Now, we’re seeing a bit of stabilization,” she says.

AGENT MORALE 

Bursey, who’s attended several conferences with travel advisors since the end of the pandemic, also addressed the importance of keeping morale high. Noting the many challenges travel advisors faced during the pandemic years, from dealing with cancellations to rescheduling flights for their clients, she says that staying visible and social in the community is a great way to stay motivated.

“I think the advisors who are participating in conferences and events are feeding off the energy and turning that energy into something positive, whereas those who are more solitary are finding that they’re quite exhausted,” says Bursey. “My advice is, if you’re in a network, find people to be with because there’s strength in numbers.” 

When asked how Transat can help advisors who are struggling, Bursey says its sales team is always available to offer support. 

“We’re a very B2B-focused organization, we own a travel agency network because we feel strongly that advisors have a great role to play in the travel industry,” she says. “We know things are challenging but our sales and groups departments are fast to answer people. We’ve got a lot of people – including me – whose entire job is to make sure the B2B community is doing okay. It’s not all easygoing – there are still some bumps in the road – but overall, we’re here  to help and always consider advisors when making decisions.”