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Travel agencies in crisis: The mood continues to deteriorate in May 2025!
The current sales climate index shows a deterioration in the mood in travel agencies in May 2025. Despite mixed sales expectations, there remains uncertainty about the earnings situation.
Travel agencies in crisis: The mood continues to deteriorate in May 2025!
In May 2025, the sales climate index from the management consultancy Dr. Fried & Partner a clear cooling of the mood in the travel agency industry. How travel before9 reports, the downward trend of the last few months has continued unbroken and has increased in intensity since February.
Only 34 percent of travel agencies surveyed rated the current situation as good, which represents a dramatic decline of almost 10 percentage points compared to the previous month. In contrast, the proportion of offices that rate their situation as satisfactory rose by 4 percentage points to 46 percent. What is particularly worrying is the increase in travel agencies who rate their situation as poor; Here the proportion is over 20 percent – an increase of over 5 percentage points.
Decline in travel sales
Travel sales have decreased at 15 percent of offices surveyed and 49 percent report a decline in sales, an increase of 11 percentage points compared to the previous month. Interestingly, only 14 percent of agencies expect demand for travel to increase in the coming months, while 32 percent expect sales figures to fall. However, there is also some stability, with 54 percent expecting demand to remain the same.
Expectations for the earnings situation are also bleak: only 14 percent expect an improvement within the next six months, which corresponds to a decline of 7 percentage points. At the same time, 37 percent predict a deterioration in earnings, an increase of 6 percentage points. A total of 265 travel agents responded to the survey, compared to 257 last month.
Positive picture at the beginning of the year
Sales development also showed optimistic trends: 34 percent of offices reported sales that increased compared to the previous year, while 43 percent reported unchanged sales figures. These positive developments were supported by a trend towards higher value bookings and long-distance travel, although rising travel prices presented sales challenges.
In the next six months, 26 percent expected demand to increase, while around 55 percent expected demand to remain stable and 18 percent expected bookings to decline. The earnings situation also remains a prerequisite for numerous discussions, as 30 percent of those surveyed expect an improvement, but almost half expect no changes and around 20 percent fear a deterioration.
At the “Future Forum” organized by the travel agency association VUSR, the existing problems within the industry and the need for improvement in the cooperation between travel agencies, tour operators and airlines were intensively discussed. Uncertainty about the causes of a possible deterioration in earnings remains a key challenge for travel agencies.