Barrhead Travel, one of the UK’s leading travel agencies, has achieved a back-to-back record-breaking year, and says it is eyeing growth for 2025.
The Glasgow-headquartered travel agency group last year celebrated success with 12 consecutive record-breaking months and has now gone on to exceed sales again every month in 2024.
This year, the group invested in a series of store refurbs, as well as celebrating the launch of its second store in Northern Ireland in early December.
Barrhead invested £1.3 million to open in Newtownabbey, adding to its store at Victoria Square in Belfast, which opened in 2017.
The 2,200 sq ft branch in the Abbeycentre created seven jobs.
Barrhead - founded in 1975 and which has expanded from a traditional ‘bucket and spade’ travel agent to a multi-faceted travel group offering bespoke holidays and cruises to all corners of the globe - says it has also focussed on ‘sustainable growth’ with the launch of new product divisions including a specialist USA division.
Training and development were noted as priorities for the business with the launch of its new Development Academy, designed for upskilling its workforce and nurturing talent.
Barrhead will close the year trading up 13% compared with sales in 2023, which was previously the company’s best year.
It says sustained high holiday demand has bolstered sales, with forward bookings for 2025 ahead compared with the same period last year.
And it added that the shift towards early planning reflects a growing desire for customers to secure best availability as well as being able to spread the cost.
Barrhead Travel also published its list of the top trips from Northern Ireland during 2024, which were:
- Mallorca
- Paris
- Tenerife
- Barcelona (cruise)
- Alicante
- Portugal
- Costa Del Sol
- Salou
- Rhodes
- Lanzarote
- New York
The company said last-minute bookings were a notable feature of its holiday sales as the poor summer weather encouraged spontaneous breaks.
All inclusive holidays remained the number one holiday type while cruise bookings also grew in popularity – particularly river cruising where sales increased by 43%.
Holiday duration was on the rise with breaks for 10 nights or longer accounting for more than 50% of bookings – something that the travel group says is reflective of people’s desire to make the most of their annual leave.
Jacqueline Dobson, president at Barrhead Travel said: “As we look to 2025, we’re expecting another strong year for travel.
“We’ve made further investments in our product portfolio to ensure we can offer the most exciting experiences on the market with value-for-money at the forefront of our plans.
“We’re also doubling down on our commitment to our colleagues and our communities with further investments earmarked for training as well as potential new store openings.”