January usually brings lots of enthusiasm for booking a foreign holiday, as people look to shake off the winter blues by getting their travel plans in place for the year ahead. It’s been wonderful to hear of strong sales in the last few weeks, with last weekend’s ‘Sunshine Saturday’ proving a real success for many of our Members.

ABTA’s latest media push has focused on generating lots of excitement for holidays, driving sales during this hugely important period and making sure that booking with an ABTA Member travel agent or tour operator is front of mind for anyone planning to go on holiday this year.

Our prediction that this year’s ‘Sunshine Saturday’ could be one of the busiest ever for holiday bookings (more detail in our press release) was covered by almost all of the national papers last weekend, including The Daily Mail, The Times, The Guardian, The Sun, The Daily Express and The Telegraph, as well as dozens of regional papers plus national and local radio stations. 

Crucially, the majority of the articles included my comments encouraging people to book their holidays with an ABTA Member, a message which is also at the heart of our annual 'Travel with confidence' advertising campaign which launched last month.

Given this buzz around holidays and heightened awareness of the importance of looking for the ABTA logo when booking, there’s no better time to make sure you’re proudly displaying your ABTA credentials. We have guidance and a range of assets to help you do this, so if you haven’t already, make sure you visit the marketing toolkit in the Member Zone to find out more.

Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive