Travel agents report hectic business

Tour operators and travel agents throughout the State are reporting "one of the busiest Januarys in years".

However, the Irish Travel Agents' Association (ITAA) warned against some agents and operators "talking it up too much", saying that the ready-packaged holiday market was likely to be "steady if not stagnant" this year.

Budget Travel, which began its sale for the 2006 summer season yesterday morning, said that business had been "hectic from the word go".

Niamh Hayes, company spokeswoman, said volumes so far indicated that sales in the package market would be stronger than last year. "This year, people seem to be more up-beat, more confident. Even our pre-registration figures - that is people who registered for holidays and dates they really want before they went on sale - were stronger than last year."

The company, which no longer uses other agents to sell its products, is this year adding Croatia and Bulgaria to its choice of destinations and has reintroduced Mexico.

Ms Hayes said that the 22 people who had queued outside the Baggot Street branch in Dublin since Christmas all got free holidays to the places they wanted at a cost to the company of €62,000.

Others in the industry agreed that yesterday had been busy, although many emphasised that they had begun selling summer holidays many months ago.

Damien Mooney, managing director of Falcon/JWT, said that the company had been selling its 2006 holidays since last summer.

"We did not leave anyone queuing out in the cold," he said, adding that bookings had been coming in on the company's website all through Christmas.

He said that they expected to sell about 300,000 holidays this year, 30 per cent of them this month.

Other travel agents also reported being "extremely busy" yesterday, with City Travel in Cork saying that it had been "up the walls" and First Choice in Galway so busy that its phones were being answered by a messaging service.

Simon Nugent, chief executive of the ITAA, pointed out that January was the busiest month of the year for tour operators and travel agents, saying: "They like to get it off to a flying start."

He expected growth in the holiday market, which was 6 per cent last year, to be repeated this year, but said that he would be "wary about some talking it up too much".

The main growth was in city breaks and self-made packages, where the traveller consulted an agent to arrange his or her own package of hotels, events and flights.

"The ready-packaged holiday market has been just steady, if not to say stagnant," Mr Nugent said. It was too early to predict whether that would change this year. However, they would have a clearer idea of how things were going "in four to five weeks".