Gold Medal Travel and Advantage are set to develop a closer partnership following the consortium’s departure from the Triton Travel Group.
Gold Medal managing director Terry Fisher openly admitted at this year’s Advantage conference it wants a stronger commercial relationship with the consortium at the expense of its main competitor Travel 2.
Speaking at a panel debate on partnerships, Fisher told delegates: “My biggest competitor is now owned by your biggest competitor. There is no more compelling argument to want to work with Advantage. We need to work more closely with Advantage to find out what you want from us.”
A closer partnership could be to the detriment of competitor Travel 2’s sales for Advantage, which currently provides around 25% of Travel 2’s sales. “Clearly I would like to think we can eat into Travel 2’s business,” said Fisher.
Travel 2 is the sister company of the Global Travel Group, which forms part of Triton.
Fisher insisted Gold Medal’s sales through the Global Travel Group had not yet dipped despite being Travel 2’s sister-company. He added: “We still have a relationship with Global but we are realistic to know that as our own biggest competitor Travel 2 will try to build business down those routes [with Global].”
Advantage commercial director Julia Lo Bue-Said said Travel 2 remained a significant partner for the consortium but admitted: “It’s been a challenging year with Travel 2. It’s been going through a lot of change.”
She added: “We have seen a real effort by Gold Medal to support the package proposition and sales of its new luxury brochure through our agents have been phenomenal; sales have grown beyond all our expectations.”