Blue Sea Holidays unveils new-look website

Blue Sea Holidays unveils new-look website

Agency’s January sales 10% up YOY as more than 50% of bookings now made on mobile or tablet Continue reading

Blue Sea Holidays has unveiled its new-look website after a January that was 10% up on sales against last year.

It now features TripAdvisor ratings on the site and has made more suppliers and airlines fully bookable online.

“It’s a much more modern, clean, fresh website,” said sales manager Andy Brewer. “The old website was decent but we’d had it a while and it needed a refresh. We’ve used the opportunity to make it better as well.”

The site’s redesign has also taken into account the increase in searches, and bookings made via mobile and tablet.

Brewer said more than 50% of bookings are mow made on ‘smaller devices’.

He added: “We’ve seen a huge move towards clients wanting to chat rather than call. Maybe that’s because they’re in public when they’re looking on their devices so don’t want to talk.”

The chat facility is operated by human agents, but Blue Sea Holidays has an AI-driven chatbot, called Amy, that Brewer said may be rolled out as and when customer demand becomes high enough.

“We’ve got the technology, but people still want to know they’re talking to a human. But we’ve found the chat facility very popular, especially among the younger generation.

“A lot of customers even want to put their credit card details in the chat, but we insist they do that over the phone.”

With Blue Sea Holidays, a member of the Broadway Travel consortium, 10% up on last January Brewer said there had been a trend towards more beach holidays.

He said there was big demand for Turkey, Greece was selling well and the Red Sea resort of Hurghada in Egypt was having a “real, real recovery”.

Spain, and Mallorca – where Blue Sea Holidays’ head office is based – were slightly down due to high prices, he said, adding that there was little demand for Tunisia since flights resumed

“Spain may have hit its peak and prices are still high so people are looking elsewhere,” said Brewer. “Turkey is having a big bounce back and Greece is selling well. We’ve also seen a real, real recovery in Hurghada. It’s from a low base, but it’s way up on last year.”

Blue Sea Holidays has a network of 30 homeworkers based in the UK, Spain, India and Australia. It’s new website went live on Friday, February 2.