Kuoni has “banned” the use of the term ‘homeworker’ within its business, insisting from now on that agents working from home are referred to as home-based business owners.
The move is part of a plan to continue to grow sales from this segment of the trade, which currently accounts for 37% of agency sales – a proportion that is up 10% on this time last year, according to trade sales director Sarah Weetman.
Weetman said she had put in place a plan to grow sales via home-based business agents by 30% by 2025. She said she would do this by creating bespoke events and assets, and providing plenty of multi-centre worldwide offers for agents to post on social media pages.
She is also creating a feedback group, to be led by Adam Morris from her team, which will feature the operator’s top 10 most engaged home-based business owners.
She said: “We think we will really be able to learn from these 10. We want them all to have really great relationships with our destination experts in our expert hub – our name for our call centre. All agent calls are now handled by the expert hub, and are no longer re-directed to our shop network.”
Kuoni has also created a series of video clips for agent partners to meet its destination experts.
“These are short reels that we’ve created, and which we are posting twice a week through July and August to enable agents to meet the people in the expert hub who make everything happen,” said Weetman.
“Once we’ve covered everyone from the expert hub, we will move onto filming the product team, and the finance team.”
She continued: “Anyone can say they are experts but we are showing that we really are and it takes all of the expertise and experience of the people in Kuoni to make our sorts of holidays happen. We want to encourage agents to ask for specific destination experts, share direct lines and really build strong relationships.”
Weetman added: “Once we’ve covered everyone from the expert hub, we will move onto filming the product team, and the finance team.”
Kuoni has also been working hard to expand its product range to and address its pricing.
“There was a bit of a perception that we were just honeymoons and a bit more expensive than competitors. We have conducted a huge competitor and commercial review, and have been working on offering a wider range of destinations and properties and also making our holidays more affordable,” said Weetman.
Kuoni will continue to focus on its exclusive properties such as in the Maldives, where it has 12, as well as Thailand, Antigua and Bali.
It is also “rebooting” the destinations of Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Turkey.
“These places have not been on sale for many years. They are amazing but affordable,” said Weetman.
For existing destinations where it’s hard to negotiate better rates, Kuoni is dropping prices and taking a lower margin.
Weetman revealed Kuoni would bringing back two agent fam trips later this year – to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, then from 2025, Weetman said she would “totally revitalise our fam trips”.
Weetman and the four-strong trade team, which consists of Dani Kelly and Matt Sole, who have worked at Kuoni for many years, as well as newcomers to the operator Sarah Ashmore and Adam Morris, have also re-started shop visits for the first time in several years.
Weetman said: “I wanted a team that was fun, approachable and professional and have created one that is the perfect blend of people that know Kuoni really well, with people that know agents really well.
“Mark [Duguid], our CEO, has made it clear that Kuoni is an operator first business that needs third party agents, and we’ve really upped the ante internally about the potential of third-party sales. We’ve already seen a 10% increase in year-on-year sales since April and we’ve taken our largest ever trade booking, which was £149,000 made by an agents in Hays Travel in Lowestoft.”
Weetman added that agents were also driving more calls into the expert hub with 65% of calls now coming from the trade versus direct.
She added that Kuoni’s trade Facebook page now had 6,100 members which had doubled in a year.