Audley Travel has reported record trade sales for the first four months of the year, alongside the graduation of the first cohort from its Future Faces of Luxury Travel agent training programme.
The luxury tailor-made specialist said trade sales between January and April were up 28% year-on-year, including its highest-ever trade booking worth more than £250,000.
The operator also completed the first intake of its Future Faces of Luxury Travel programme in April. The eight-week course, which launched in March, combined online learning with a final in-person session in London and was designed to help agents develop their understanding of the luxury travel market and tailor-made itinerary planning.
Sessions featured contributions from luxury travel specialists including Gemma Antrobus of Haslemere Travel and AITO Agents Chair, and Caroline Moody from Regent Seven Seas Cruises.
The programme concluded with a graduation lunch at Sexy Fish London attended by Audley Travel Managing Director Mark Hanson (pictured below).
Trade Partnerships Manager Sarah Turner said: “The incredible inaugural group have shown curiosity, commercial instinct and emotional intelligence, and have taught me so much about what’s truly inspiring about the travel industry.
“I look forward to sharing their future journeys and watching the group raise the bar for excellence across the tailor-made sector.”
It follows Audley Travel’s first ‘World by Water’ trade cruise events in April, hosted in Poole, Guildford and York, which were attended by more than 80 agents and designed to showcase Audley’s hybrid cruise and land itineraries.
