The value of membership of The Travel Network Group has gone up 30% in the 18 months since the consortium’s last overseas conference to £165,000 a year, it was claimed.
Lisa Henning, group membership services director of the Worldchoice and Travel Trust Association parent, said the increase we due to the services, training and technology it has delivered.
She listed the achievements and the number of members “engagements” over the last 18 months which numbered 8,249 including members visits, calls and meetings.
The group has run 54 regional meetings, 22 Institute of Customer Service events, supported 184 in-store events, held 12 webinars for training on its Honeycomb bookings system for 178 members and sent out 4,103 tweets.
“These are our achievements. It’s important to me we demonstrate how hard we work for you. It’s important you get real return on investment on your membership fee,” she said.
Henning highlighted a number of new developments including a new member recruitment team. TTNG has had 446 applications to join the consortium this year and accepted 252, she said.
“What’s really important to remind ourselves while we want to say yes to all 446 we need to make sure they’re right for the group and do not devalue your brands in any way,” Henning said.
TTNG will run open days at its Woking headquarters during which existing members can speak to potential new members about joining TTNG.
A new business development manager will also be appointed to help new to travel new members of the group and mentor them as they establish themselves in the sector.
Henning announced two firsts for the group including a free mystery shopper service that has already been trialled with its stores it operates.
There will also be a new Atol to Atol solution that will allow members to sell through other members via their t-Atol, a special arrangement TTNG has with the regulator the CAA.
This is supported by a payments system and is currently in trial with two members, Henning announced.
TTNG’s Honeycomb dynamic packaging technology has seen 12 new suppliers added and 28 new features added. A total of 62 members have signed up for in-store training.
Henning said as a result of increased support from members Honeycomb bookings have doubled since a revamped system has been launched.
A series of further enhancements are due to go live next week including multi-centre and open jaw flights, new call to action and quotes display, and enhancement to website vouchers.
A refreshed look and feel is also due to go live next week.
Henning said the Honeycomb system played a huge role in protecting members businesses when Monarch collapsed in October.
She said by 9am on the morning of the collapse all bookings made any of TTNG’s central systems had been re-protected.
TTNG launched a private Facebook group through which is communicates with members a month ago and 54 members have signed up.
As well as its regional meetings TTNG will launch new cluster meetings of like-minded agents that want to develop a specialism in a particular field.
The first will take place on March 1 and will focus on luxury travel with a guest speakers invited to talk to members about the sector.
In the early part of next year the regional meetings structure will be reviewed with the various heads of regions in case any regions need to be added or merged.