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As international travel resumes and consumer confidence grows, The Travel Corporation (TTC)’s Groups Division has recently experienced a surge of enquiry, as overseas travel plans progress from dream to reality. Offering agent partners access to an unparalleled range of flexible group solutions, supporting both scheduled departures and custom/special interest group opportunities, TTC Groups provides enhanced opportunities for agents to kickstart their Groups business and help rebuild international sales.

The experienced TTC Groups team offers bespoke itineraries across a broad range of categories from youth, premium, contemporary, luxury, river cruising and adventure, offering a unique perspective on emerging trends in this space. Given the crucial role Groups can play in rebuilding travel businesses, the team are keen to share key insights and opportunities with agent partners to inform their international group activity. Here, a few new trends that the TTC Groups team have recently observed:

New and popular Group types and requirements:

  • Group itineraries concentrating on a single country, where previously multi-country options were more common. Nordic countries, Canada and the UK are currently popular destinations.
  • Extended family groups and ‘reunion’ type trip. “A great example is a meet-in-the-middle Sri Lanka itinerary for April 2022, where families are coming from UK and Australia to reunite after two years apart,” says Adventure World Travel’s Head of Groups, Ange Mount.
  • Demand for conscious travel experiences that offer authentic interaction and have a positive social and/or environmental impact on host communities. TTC’s MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences are being included in more and more custom itineraries.
  • Agents hosting their Group departure has become an even more powerful USP, giving clients that extra peace of mind during their travels.

The emerging enquiry and distribution patterns we’ve observed:

  • Clubs and Lifestyle Villages are offering strong potential for Groups business. Uniworld River Cruises are experiencing a popularity spike in Golf affinity groups with golf club visits arranged at various ports. More generally the appeal of travelling in a connected social group has never been stronger.
  • New emerging group agents, with the majority of enquiries coming from non-traditional partners. “For first-time group agents, we are here to demystify international groups, provide guidance across all arrangements, guaranteed pricing in local currency and ongoing logistical support,” says TTC Head of Groups, Robyn Brown.
  • Strategic collaboration to achieve maximum group numbers, with multiple agents promoting and selling into one group departure.
  • Increased leverage of TTC’s wholesale capability and owned Destination Management Companies (DMCs), with agents looking to mitigate risk and benefit from competitive rates and quality assurances.