easyJet holidays launches in high street travel stores and independent travel agents

easyJet holidays has started its roll out to the independent travel trade with a soft launch with a handful of initial partners. The move, which will then see all 3000 trade partners on board by early September, means customers can book with an independent travel agent not just online via the easyJet holidays website. 

The full roll out will see the on-boarding of over 3000 partners across Hays Travel, Hays Independence Group, Travel Counsellors, The Travel Network Group, Advantage Travel Group, Mid Counties Cooperative Travel and Protected Trust Services.

The new holiday company, which only launched in November 2019, has been committed to working with the travel trade since its inception. While the intended launch date was impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic, the difficult environment the industry has been facing has meant this is an even more welcome move and a rare piece of good news at the current time. 

As part of the launch the travel firm has built a brand new trade portal for use by agents. This will be available to signed up trade partners alongside FAQs and materials on its full range of holidays. It has also hosted over 3000 agents on dedicated webinars in addition to the series of successful agent partner days the easyJet holidays team held earlier in the year. easyJet holidays will be supporting the trade launch with marketing assets for use across social media, customer emails, in store window POS and screens, and partner websites. 

Garry Wilson, CEO, easyJet holidays said: “It’s always been really important to us to work with the trade and it’s something we’ve been absolutely committed to even though we’ve had a couple of unfortunate timings setbacks. We recognise the fantastic job they do and know that they will be able to attract a different type of customer to consider and choose an easyJet holiday. For launch we’ll have materials in more than 1800 shop windows in some key regions across the UK. And we think that now more than ever customers will be looking to their trusted travel agents to help with holiday bookings. We look forward to welcoming all of our partners on board and working together to make this a great success.”

Si Morris-Green, Head of Distribution, easyJet holidays added: “It’s really exciting to be starting to launch with a fantastic range of trade partners. We’ve worked really hard to bring this to life and we think everyone we’re working with represents the full breadth and depth of the trade sector and it covers high street and homeworkers too. We’ve put a lot in to our communications and invested a lot of time in our agents – they’ve been taking part in dedicated webinars and we hosted a series of successful agent partner days earlier in the year. We can’t wait to continue this ongoing support with a new dedicated trade team.”

John and Irene Hays, co-owners of the UK’s largest independent travel agency, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to be one of the first trade partners for easyJet holidays’ travel trade launch. This is very good news for our customers who will have even more choice - and for the whole travel industry. It’s great to see the commitment from easyJet holidays to the independent travel trade and the high street. It’s an incredible opportunity and we really look forward to working closely together with easyJet and seeing even more people being able to book their dream holidays once more.”

Kirsten Hughes, Travel Counsellors Managing Director and Chief Commercial Officer, said; “We are extremely pleased to partner with easyJet holidays. The brand offers a great addition to our portfolio of product and further strengthens the breadth of choice our Travel Counsellor business owners are able to provide to their customers, alongside the personalised, caring and trusted service that customers are clearly craving more than ever in the current climate.”

Mark Mitchell, Head of Commercial & Product at Midcounties Co-operative Travel commented: “Midcounties are delighted to welcome easyjet holidays to our approved supplier list.  With an exceptional consumer brand, extensive regional flying, and quality product range they will be a great addition to our package holiday category, providing each of our trading divisions, Retail, Consortium and PTA with a great opportunity to expand their sales and introduce and attract new customers to the travel agent booking channel.  We are very excited to be entering into what we expect to be a long and successful partnership.”