Riviera Travel has praised travel agents following the operator’s best day of trade bookings for nearly a year.

The river cruise and touring specialist saw agent sales almost double month-on-month, and hit their highest level since March 2020.

River cruise accounted for the bulk of agent bookings, with mainland Europe proving the most popular destination.

Riviera Travel channel director Stuart Milan said: “We want to thank the trade for such a successful day and are so grateful for their continued support. We are absolutely committed to collaborating with our agent partners, and have worked hard to maintain and develop our relationships, both with high street and online retailers.

“We’re encouraged by this increasing demand and it’s great to see Riviera now being the go-to choice for river cruise and tours among so many agents. Our flexible booking promise is ideal for giving customers the reassurance they may need to go ahead and book a well-deserved break this year or in 2022.”

Speaking to CTN at the end of 2020, Milan highlighted how Riviera is keen to change how it works with agents.

“Essentially, an agency will now have one point of contact within our sales team, so it makes the communication that much easier and it allows us to make sure that the plans are that much more concrete,” he said.

“There’s a lot more accountability from our side and from the travel agent side. We can identify where the opportunity is and really get behind the trade, putting the right marketing plans in place and so on. It helps us ensure we have the team set up correctly, with the right ways of working in place, motivating agents, incentivising them and really getting behind them.”

Riviera Travel recently extended two of its current offers to provide additional flexibility. Both were originally scheduled to end on 28 February, but will now run to 31 March 2021.