Q: How does TravelManagers attract people into your organisation and, more importantly, make them want to stay?
A: I believe our reputation as a business has a lot to do with both new recruits joining our network and our team working at the NPO (National Partnership Office).
From a personal travel manager (PTM) perspective, we lost roughly 200 people through the pandemic. We went into it with just on 620 PTM’s and we came out of it with about 420.
What we have seen since about January 2023 is that when we do our monthly induction groups of six to eight people, there’s at least one PTM in that group that left during the pandemic that’s now coming back. The majority of new PTMs are referrals from our network who are our strongest advocates.
And I’m not just seeing PTMs coming back to travel – suppliers who left during the pandemic are returning. People miss travel and so while we lost a lot of intellectual property (IP) during COVID, a lot of that IP is now returning.
I think for us our biggest ability to recruit is that we really do try to walk the walk in terms of not only providing the best financial return but also the best support. And that support has to start from day one when they come in for induction.
Setting new PTMs up for success is so important to our business which is why we put so much focus on induction.
Q: Clearly your induction process is important and very thorough.
A: I think we’re the only network that actually flies people in for three days of intensive induction – we’re actually going to extend that to four.
They come into the National Partnership Office (NPO) and we do a full overhaul on what each of our departments provides and supports them with.
What we know is, when someone joins us, there’s two or three critical elements they have to know.
They’ve got to know how to use the GDS, otherwise they can’t transact. They have got to know how to use the mid-office, because that’s where you live and breathe in terms of accounting and all that goes with the back end of running a business.
And you’ve really got to understand fares and ticketing because advisors win or lose business dependant on their skills to sell air, as an example embracing NDC can make the difference to converting a booking or not!
Not only that, but for many new recruits this is probably the first time they have ever run their own business. Having a well thought out business plan, marketing plan and financial objective is critical.
We provide extensive support to getting them off on the right foot. As an example our 90-day check list enables them to focus on what they need to focus on in the first three months of operating their own business.
So the induction is a critical part of helping people understand how to run a travel business.
Q: You must be doing something right because a lot of feedback I get from your PTM’s is that the NPO is an invaluable resource to them.
A: The tenure and longevity of our NPO team is actually quite phenomenal. People stay at TravelManagers because we really try to support our team.
From an NPO perspective, they really do love working in our business. They’re incredibly dedicated – all the way from the finance team through to the partnership team, marketing and across all seven departments in our business.
If we didn’t retain our people, it would make it a lot harder for us to induct people effectively, because you’ve got to understand the nuances of travel. It’s a very complicated business.
Having that longevity within the team has been a large part of helping our network be successful.
Q: What are your thoughts on the state of the travel industry in general?
A: We’ve seen record month after record month in terms of consumer demand for travel and it just appears to be continuing.
We seem to have a ‘two speed’ economy. We’re hearing about a cost of living crisis and then on the flip side there’s just been so much demand for travel across all generations, from GenX to Millennial all the way through to Baby Boomer.
I’d say particularly in the GenX and Baby Boomer age groups, the spend of money on travel has been unprecedented.
The demand for travel continues to break sales records and no sign of that changing anytime soon.
Q: Are there any hot destinations or regions you’re seeing right now?
A: If I looked at our turnover, at least 40 per cent of it over the last two years has been Europe. It’s been the big winner and continues to be the big winner. Australians have got an affinity and love affair with it and particularly certain parts of the Mediterranean.
There’s emerging markets in Europe too, with some of the Eastern block countries. When we look at numbers across the board globally, the African and South American continents are all growing.
So the future looks really positive, but do I have a crystal ball and can I tell you that this time next year things will be continuing to track up? No.
Q: So, looking into your non-existent crystal ball, does the future look bright for travel agents, whether home-based or other models?
A: I think the critical part of being a professional advisor is saying ‘what is it that I can do that the DIY customer cannot’.
As we go forward with technology and things like AI, we’ve learned that you can’t provide consumers with too many choices. You’ve got to really distil it down to two or three choices and almost help the consumer by saying this is the best thing for you, because they’re just surrounded by information overload.
Going forwards I think it’s incredibly important for travel advisors to add value. This has to start from the beginning and qualifying a client is so important.
Being able to quickly and succinctly understand what the client is looking for on their next adventure and active listening can really mean the difference between converting business and not.
Adding value, making recommendations and sourcing the best value for money products is what the best in the business do day after day.
