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The Freedom Travel Group and Co-operative Personal Travel Advisors (CPTA) have joined forces on a recruitment drive to attract more members.
It is the first time the groups, both part of Thomas Cook, have launched a joint recruitment effort, and the first advertising campaign for new members for at least 18 months.
The dual-branded trade adverts encourage agents to “be part of something bigger” by joining the Freedom consortium of high street and online agencies or CPTA network of homeworkers.
A new recruitment website, bepartofsomethingbigger.co.uk, has gone live and a recruitment manager appointed, alongside other new roles in an expanded management team under Kelly Cookes, who took over as head of both groups just over a year ago.
Cookes said: “We are putting ourselves back out there.” But she stressed the recruitment campaign remained focused on quality over quantity, saying: “It’s not a numbers game.”
Freedom has 142 high street branches, as well as online and call centre members nationwide, and in the past three months has attracted eight new members.
There are 130 personal travel advisors, with 10 homeworkers joining in the past three months, and more than 60 enquiries, said Cookes.
She said the move was not in response to members leaving. “We have lost more in previous years than in the past year, just through normal movement.
“It feels like the right time to do this. I don’t have a number in mind. We want to grow, absolutely. We want to attract good, solid businesses.
“We want to be able to take the right members. It’s not about taking 20 to 30 a month, it’s about where there is the right fit.”