Dnata Travel Group is to host 21 overseas agent fam trips in the next four months – a record for a 16-week period.
The trips will be run by the company’s Gold Medal, Cruise Plus, Pure Luxury and Incredible Journeys brands, with a further nine educationals also in the planning stage for the same period.
More than 150 agents are due to be hosted alongside 50 dnata B2B staff from its call centre, product, marketing and operations teams.
Partners for the visits include AM Resorts, Visit Florida, One&Only, A-Rosa, Ponant, Qatar Tourism and Qatar Airways.
The groups will visit Sri Lanka, Singapore, Bali, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Africa, Australia, New York, Las Vegas, Florida, Mexico, Alaska, Antarctica, Canada, Qatar, Oman, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, the Maldives and Mauritius.
B2B trade partnerships Director Karen Fletcher said: “Inviting agents to experience the product they sell to customers has always been a critical part of our strategy in building unrivalled relationships with the people who are most important to our success – agents.
“We believe it’s never been more important to get them out to touch, hear, taste and experience destinations so that they can take what they’ve learnt back to their shops and homes and be better equipped to sell.”
She added: “We’re proud to have incredible relationships with hundreds of valued industry partners, with whom we’re now working very closely to ensure that every trip is one to remember. It’s thanks to those relationships that we can do things no other operator can.”
One fam trip, hosted by Pure Luxury and taking in the new Atlantis The Royal resort in Dubai, attracted more than 600 agent entries and is due to depart next week.
Fletcher said: “We’ve never had such a concentration of fam trips planned, and it’s testament to our commitment to agents and determination to ensure they’re able to sell with the confidence that only comes from experiencing a product or place first hand.
“We’re extremely grateful to our industry partners for their support in helping us to create this unrivalled programme of fam trips to showcase the scale and scope of the Gold Medal, Cruise Plus, Pure Luxury and Incredible Journeys product. Like them, we feel it’s the least those agents deserve.”