Midcounties Co-operative Travel’s new commercial chief Mark Mitchell is looking to improve the way supplier deals are communicated with the group’s travel agents.
Mitchell, who was appointed in August and replaced Julie Kendrick, said there was a huge amount of information to pass on from supplier partners to its consortium, shop and homeworking agents.
He said: “We have to try to present deals relevant to them to make their lives easier.
“In an ideal world, one size would fit all but the consortium, retail shops, and Personal Travel Agents trade slightly differently and therefore require information in different ways. We don’t want to overload them, but we want to make the information appealing.”
More:Midcounties appoints Mark Mitchell as new commercial chief
Mitchell, who is overseeing the commercial and product divisions and working closely with in-house tour operation Co-operative Holidays, is also keen to work more closely with its third party suppliers.
Bed bank partners now fall under Mitchell’s remit; previously they were handled by the in-house tour operation team.
“On the commercial side, I am looking for the relationships with suppliers to work both ways,” Mitchell said. “If we identify demand for a particular product or holiday type, we want to find a way to push back and ask tour operator partners if they can source that for our agents, therefore helping to grow their businesses as well as ours.
“If we have existing partners capable of fufiling the needs of our distribution channels then why not give them the opportunity?”
