Seaside Travel embraces football fever to drive sales

Seaside Travel is ‘embracing’ the nation’s football fever during Uefa Euro 24 to drive further sales.

The travel industry often complains of a decline in sales during major events because consumers divert their attention from booking holidays to watching sport on the TV or in person.

Brand manager Richard Lowrey-Heywood said the nine-branch agency had so far not seen a dip in bookings and was encouraging clients to book deals to footballing nations through its shops.

He said: “We are literally embracing the football. We have England flags all over our shops, we have deals on offer to all the countries, we have football-themed marketing, we are all having a bit of banter about the football and talking to customers about it. We can’t ignore it, so why not embrace it?”

The chain has already decorated all nine shops with a football theme and is showing football games on TVs in every shop. Its marketing centres on ‘scoring a great deal’ by coming in-store.

All staff in managerial positions have been given one of two teams in the Euros and have been tasked with finding deals to the countries their teams are from.

“We have posted deals for every country in Euro 24, from weekend trips to Scotland to city breaks in Serbia,” said Lowrey-Heywood, who added: “We have not seen sales decline.”

Seaside Travel shops even shut early for last week’s England game against Denmark to allow staff to go home and watch the match at home, he said.

Lowrey-Heywood said the agency was also encouraging customers to go on domestic as well as overseas holidays with the improved UK weather through its currently marketing campaign, The Great Seaside Getaway. It has posted holiday suggestions on the UK page of its website.

“We want everyone to get away, it doesn’t have to be abroad, it could be two nights in Cumbria,” he said, and predicted strong bookings for the last weekend of June, in part thanks to pay-day at the end of the month.