More UK holidaymakers are turning to travel professionals, according to new research published by Abta, the travel trade association — a shift that carries direct revenue implications for agents, tour operators and the suppliers who distribute through them.

The headline finding matters for sellers of travel because it points to demand moving back toward advised channels after years of direct-booking pressure from online platforms. Abta's consumer research has long served as a benchmark for how the UK market splits between packaged holidays, agent bookings and direct online purchases.

What does the research actually show?

Abta's study indicates a rise in the share of holidaymakers using travel professionals — agents and tour operators — when arranging their trips. The trade body positions the finding as evidence that consumers increasingly value the security, support and expertise that come with booking through a bonded, regulated travel business rather than self-assembling trips online.

For distribution teams at airlines, hotel groups and destination management organisations, that behavioural signal affects where marketing spend and commission structures should sit. If more bookings flow through intermediated channels, suppliers face higher acquisition costs per booking but gain access to customers who typically spend more per trip and repeat-book at higher rates.

The takeaway: the customer is voting for advised selling, and that vote shows up in channel mix.

Why are consumers moving toward agents?

Industry analysts have tracked several pressures pushing holidaymakers back to professionals in recent booking cycles. Disruption — from flight delays to operator failures — has made financial protection and after-sales support more valuable to consumers. Complex, multi-element itineraries are harder to self-manage on booking engines. Abta members operate under the association's financial protection schemes and code of conduct, a distinction the trade body promotes heavily in consumer-facing campaigns.

The research lands as evidence that these arguments are converting into booking behaviour rather than remaining trade rhetoric. Abta has consistently argued that professional sellers deliver outcomes direct channels cannot match when travel goes wrong.

In plain terms: consumers appear to be pricing in risk, and agents are the beneficiaries.

What are the commercial consequences?

For high-street and online agents, stronger consumer preference supports commission-based revenue and cross-sell of ancillaries — insurance, car hire, excursions — where margins concentrate. For tour operators, it underpins package volumes at a time when dynamic packaging from online travel agencies competes on price. For online travel agencies, it signals a defensive challenge: the value proposition of self-service booking is losing ground with segments of the market that previously converted cheaply online.

The direction of travel also matters for marketing budgets. DMOs and suppliers that shifted spend toward performance marketing and direct channels may need to rebalance toward trade partnerships, agent incentives and training if the intermediary channel keeps gaining share.

The commercial read: intermediaries are regaining negotiating power in the distribution chain.

What should sellers watch next?

Abta's research is consumer-reported attitude and behaviour data, not a transactional dataset, so the scale of the shift should be tested against actual booking volumes reported by listed operators and agents in their filings. Still, a trade association publishing research that shows its members gaining consumer preference is a distribution signal suppliers cannot ignore.

The next test comes in the coming booking cycles, when operators and agents report whether this stated preference converts into sustained transaction growth.

By Tom Whitfield