The bricks-and-mortar travel agent market continues to be impacted by both the increasing dominance of research and booking through digital channels and a significant decline in travel agents’ bricks-and-mortar retail estate. Mintel finds that the penetration of visits to travel agent stores has fallen from 31% to 21% over the past year, and the number of holidays booked in-store fell an estimated 4.5% in 2014.

The widespread store closures of the past two years are over, but many travel agents have set targets of improving their share of online bookings and, of the brands profiled by Mintel in this report, only Flight Centre has a strategy that appears to focus on in-store sales rather than online.

The coming year will see many brands expand their concept store designs across their respective retail portfolios after trials were reportedly successful. However, whether the new stores are able to reverse the decline in high street store visits remains to be seen.

This report examines the use of bricks-and-mortar travel agents by UK residents and forecasts how the market will perform over the next five years. It explores the challenges and opportunities that operators will face in the future and investigates the core drivers behind changes in the market. Key innovations in the market are also explored.

The report also explores what factors influence which travel agent a consumer chooses to visit, general attitudes towards travel agents as well as which of the headline features of new concept stores people find appealing. This subject was last explored in Mintel’s Travel Agents – UK, December 2013 report.

Travel agencies are defined as outlets at which holidays or other leisure travel products are purchased, including high street retailers and direct selling companies, many of which now operate online. Although the latter are considered in the report, the focus remains on offline operations.

Independent travel agents are those that have no links, in terms of ownership, with any tour operators and thus have the ability to sell any holiday from any operator. This compares to the vertically integrated travel agents owned by large travel groups that are heavily biased towards selling their own products, although they do sell holidays from other operators.

An adult, for the purposes of Mintel’s research, is anyone aged 16 or over.

Value figures are inclusive of VAT unless stated otherwise.

The standard travel and tourism definitions used in the terminology of this report are as follows:

• Tourism is any travel which involves at least one overnight stay away from home.

• A holiday is a subjectively defined form of tourism, as defined by the tourist in response to surveys such as the International Passenger Survey (IPS). A holiday can be distinguished from other leisure travel such as visits to friends and relatives (VFR) or shopping trips.

• Short-haul refers to destinations within Europe. The following destinations are considered to be short-haul: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus EU, Cyprus Non-EU, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Irish Republic, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Other Europe.

• Long-haul refers to destinations outside of Europe.

• The Canaries are included as a part of the Spanish market, and Madeira and the Azores are included as part of the Portuguese market.

• A pure package holiday is defined as the simultaneous sale of at least two elements of a holiday, where a customer is only provided with a total price for the purchase.

• A dynamic package holiday is defined as the sale of at least two elements of holiday, purchased simultaneously or within a 24-hour period, where the customer is able to view a breakdown of costs for each element of the holiday.

• An independent holiday is one in which the traveller organises and books transport and accommodation from separate sources, or from the same source but with purchases made more than 24 hours apart.

• The term ‘all-inclusive’ is used to describe a special type of resort holiday in which food, drink, excursions and other services are provided as part of the total holiday cost.

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Value figures are inclusive of VAT unless stated otherwise.