Riviera Travel is recruiting its first key account manager dedicated solely to homeworkers as it aims to expand the number of home-based agents it works with.
In December, the operator announced plans to recruit three key account managers, and has hired Chris McCloskey to cover Scotland and Ireland and Lloyd Morris to cover the UK and Ireland.
For the third role, Riviera Travel has now decided to make the position dedicated solely to homeworkers, to show “how serious we are about supporting those agents”, Vicky Billing, head of trade and partnerships, told Travel Weekly.
More: Riviera Travel to host 100 agents on fam trips in 2024
“Homeworkers need a different type of support compared to retail agents, for example, they might want us to run webinars in the evening because they work into the night,” she said.
“They need someone allocated solely to them as they need to know there’s someone on call if they experience a problem or need support.”
“We’ve never had a key account manager dedicated to homeworkers before and I think that’s been a gap for us so we need to fill it.”
Billing, who took up her expanded role in December, said the operator ended January with trade sales up 52% year on year, adding the trade has experience the biggest growth of any of the operator’s sales channels.
She praised the performance of agents and pledged to do “everything we can” to support the trade as wave continues.
“Time is precious and we want to save people time and support them in every way we can to help them to keep selling Riviera Travel,” she said.
“I’ve been in the industry for 26 years and I used to be an agent, so I know what support I would have wanted from an operator, and I want to give that to our agent partners.”