Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast. It's Friday the 5th of September.

And you might not know, but it is National Travel Agents Day. So I thought I better meet a travel agent

and there is nobody better than Julia Lobouet Saeed OBE, who is the chief executive of Advantage Travel Group. What happens on National

Travel Agents Day? National Travel Agents Day is a really special day today. This is really when

travel agents will start to really come into their own and let consumers know why it's so

important they book through a travel agent.

These travel agents have spent many years building up expertise. There are so many complexities

that you know traveling nowadays, the changes that are happening across Europe, etc. The travel

agent is in the best possible place to educate consumers and hold their hand all the way. And

today is the day for travel agents to really

embrace that and showcase their expertise that they deliver. Now, you have been talking a lot

about changing school holidays. At the moment, of course, there are huge surges in price,

particularly from the third week in July, when the English and Welsh holidays start

right through to the end of August. What do you have in mind? So what we see, trends that are

really impacting how families are thinking about holidays now, but also other issues like the

climate. 40 degree weather's in parts of Europe. Family just do not want to be going to those destinations at that time of year.

We're calling for a change in the school calendar.

We're calling for reform, whereby it's for the best possible interests of families,

where school holiday calendars are changed.

Possibly, that looks like a shorter period during the summer holidays, but extended

half-term periods. Better for children, better for their well-being, better for families, better for

teachers, better for anyone that's constrained with having to go during the school holidays.

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