Virgin introduces lates tech to help agents exploit ‘Olympics bounce’

Virgin Holidays is introducing new technology to help its travel agent partners exploit the lates market this summer and an expected post-Olympics bounce.

Virgin Holidays is introducing new technology to help its travel agent partners exploit the lates market this summer and an expected post-Olympics bounce.


With the UK holiday market down by around 10% a rush of demand for late deals is expected, although the window of opportunity is quickly closing two weeks into the school holidays.


For the peak selling period Virgin Holidays has announced improvements to its trade customer service offering.


The operator said it aims to reduce response times with trade calls directed to its UK customer service centre.


In addition, any agent visiting the vhols4agents trade website will be able to use a new ‘click to chat’ function that will put them in direct contact with the customer service team.


From late August the website will also feature a new Agent Service Hub similar to a consumer-facing one introduced on the Virgin Holidays website, virginholidays.com.


Mark Burns, head of sales operations at Virgin Holidays, said: “We pride ourselves on the service we offer our travel agent partners and want to ensure we’re making life as easy as possible for them.


“These latest initiatives, particularly being able to speak to our UK team, have been put in to place to ensure agents are best equipped to sell our holidays, and are able to deal with any customer enquiries quickly and efficiently.


“Our next peak sale period will capitalise on what we expect to be a post-Olympic bounce – so it was vital to get these functions up and running by then. “Hopefully, it will mean even more travel agents can benefit from the incentives we have in place for that period.”