Great Little Breaks to release first brochure in October

Domestic specialist Great Little Breaks will release its first brochure in October, in response to requests from travel agents.

Chris Cundall, trade relations director, said agents were also asked on the operator’s Facebook page to choose their favourite picture to be featured on the front cover. They chose a shot from the Lake District.

“We have always wanted to do a brochure and agents always ask for a brochure,” he said.

“It is quite a big investment – in print, design and distribution – but it helps agents to sell.”

The first edition will be a 24-page brochure, covering breaks across the UK for this winter and spring 2023-24.

It will also feature a map to show the location of London theatres and shows, plus a guide to rail connections.

The brochure should be with agents in the first week of October, as October and November are the operator’s busiest sales time, continuing into January and February.

More: Great Little Breaks plans fam trips for ‘up to 200 agents’

“If the brochure works, we’ll hopefully do a bigger one,” said Cundall.

“Agents love a brochure, something physical to look through with their customers.

“It’s old school but they want something tangible. There is a buzz around a brochure.”

He said the operator had seen sales growth this year, especially since March, and August could become its busiest ever month.

As well as city and coastal getaways, the operator is now selling breaks for Christmas and festive markets in cities such as Leeds, Manchester and York.

“We’re 35% up year on year and seem to have great momentum,” he said.

“People still want holidays to look forward to and they want something immediately, like a short break. Our lead time is about four weeks.

“The weather does not have a massive effect on bookings for UK trips – people do not book UK trips for the weather.

“We’ll do a promotion for the bank holiday and people might book for the coasts if they can see the weather will be fine, but if it’s not so good, they’ll book for London, Edinburgh and York, for example.”

He is also planning further fam trips for agents after the success of a trip to London with agents from Seaside Travel in May.

The next one will be in September with 17 staff from Travel House in south Wales, taking one from each branch and some from head office.

The agents will board trains from Swansea and Cardiff to London and stay overnight at Royal National Hotel.

“We’ll take them to dinner and to see Mrs Doubtfire, the Tower of London and on a Thamesjet speedboat,” said Cundall, who will accompany the trip along with trade sales support executive Sam Lynch.

“We’ll do even more trips in October and November,” he added.

“We saw benefits from the Seaside trip within a week, as four out of five shops made a booking. They wrote about the trip on social media – together the stores have 100,000 followers.

“They had an amazing month in July, selling London and other destinations too such as Newcastle and Leeds Christmas markets.”