Travel Counsellors managing director Steve Byrne set out the areas the agency will focus on to grow over the next five years.
Expansion overseas, better marketing, improved margins, increased retention of agents and a focus on affluent customers and small to medium-sized corporate travel clients will all be targeted.
Byrne said the agency had gone through “the biggest challenge in its 20-year history” over the past 12 months as it sought to reduce reliance on third‑party suppliers.
“That’s meant a radical redirection of our resources to manage the transition,” said Byrne. “But that transition has helped travel counsellors achieve massive things in their businesses.”
A shift to offering more tailor-made holidays has seen Travel Counsellors’ UK agents grow sales by an average of 5% year on year and earnings by double that.
Byrne pledged to improve staff retention rates as he revealed that 160 agents had left Travel Counsellors last year – each one a “wasted opportunity”, he said.
He added Travel Counsellors would strive to create higher brand awareness with the public, telling agents: “You deserve to operate on a much bigger platform than we do at the moment.” Byrne said Travel Counsellors will “play to its strengths” in new advertising and promote its customer service ethos.
The agency took on its first Belgium-based agent this year and pledged more international expansion. However, Byrne said this would not be at the expense of support for its existing agents.
Travel Counsellors has money to invest following its partial buyout by Equistone Partners, but Byrne suggested this would fuel organic growth rather than acquisitions.
Hingley unveils plans to boost agent sales
Travel Counsellors will increase support for new recruits and help its agents drive up loyalty by targeting repeat bookings from first-time clients.
Sales director Malcolm Hingley said the company will run regional events for agents next year with a focus on winning new business and increasing conversion.
It will extend its induction programme from two days to four and its buddy agent mentoring programme to two years from one. The firm will also introduce a programme to help leisure agents pick up local corporate travel accounts.
“If we can get a travel counsellor to £250,000 of sales in their second year they are likely to stay and flourish,” Hingley said.
Although Travel Counsellors has a 68% repeat booking level, Hingley said it should do more to tempt back first-time customers.
He said of the clients who booked for the first time in 2012 and 2013, 45% booked again in 2014, compared to the high street’s repeat rate of under 30%.
“If you get them to book twice you get them for life,” Hingley said. “The first-time booker will become a really important part of our business going forward.”
Travel Counsellors has produced revamped communication tools such as welcome-home emails, destination guides and texts to send on departure.
“We want to help you win back some of those lapsed customers who have not booked with you for 12 months,” Hingley said.
A new customer database includes details of those who have not booked for a year.
Travel Counsellors shows off Phenix upgrades
Travel Counsellors unveiled a new Quote and Book system, with cruise, low-cost flights and a hotel ranking programme, for agents using its in‑house selling system Phenix.
The agency hopes the enhanced system will persuade more of its agents to put together more of their own packages, which offer commission of at least 15% compared with 10% for third parties.
IT director Paul Speakman told the conference that audits carried out by Equistone Partners as part of their process to invest in the agency praised the firm’s technology.
He gave a demonstration of a cruise booking with a low-cost flight and hotel added as part of a package.
A tie-up with TrustYou will see hundreds of thousands of hotel reviews integrated into Phenix. Travel Counsellors plans to eventually switch off an older online Phenix system.