Mark Warner levels commission rates

Mark Warner has moved to a “common rate” of commission for all agency consortia to remove the “inconsistency in ?its commercial terms”.

The all-inclusive activity resort operator will now pay all consortia the same base commission rate, meaning some will see their rate go up and others will see it drop.

But Mark Warner is also inviting the different groups to negotiate targeted overrides which it believes will give them the incentive to grow their sales and earn more.

Head of sales Julie Franklin said: “We really value the trade and it’s where we see the growth coming from. We’re not doing a Virgin Holidays [going direct-sell-only].

“When I joined nine months ago, everything was so ad-hoc, from the commission paid, to targets set and even brochure distribution,” she

said. “This gives us some proper structure with consistency. And we’re already having conversations about overrides to reward growth. Before, we had guaranteed overrides, giving agents no incentive to grow ?their sales for us.”

Ben Roseveare, Mark Warner’s new head of sales and marketing, said: “The feedback we’ve had is that the rates are where they ?need to be to be competitive.”

And he added that Mark Warner was introducing a new price promise to guarantee that agents would never be undercut online.

Franklin said: “We offer a one?price policy and any offers we promote to our direct customers will be 100% obtainable via agents.”

Roseveare added: “We’re also happy to talk about exclusive tactical pricing beyond that promise with certain trusted partners.”

He said Mark Warner was increasing its trade marketing budget by 20% for 2016.