“This is Truly the Golden Age of the Travel Advisors”: Travel Leaders’ Roger Block Asserts in Toronto
07FEB was a good day for key senior management at Travel Leaders Network as the team delivered its annual state-of-the-nation report to the Canadian travel trade media, including Open Jaw.
Execs at the Toronto event included John Lovell, President and Stephen McGillivray, CMO of Travel Leaders Group; Roger Block, President and Cory Voss, CTO of Travel Leaders Network; and Vice President Canada Christine James.
“2023 was a banner year, exceeding all of our goals in recruitment, retention and sales to preferred suppliers,” declared an enthusiastic Lovell. “Advisors are playing a much stronger role and suppliers are telling us that sales through agencies are surpassing pre-pandemic levels. We’re also doing very well in the high end space – clients are spending more, and there’s a longer booking window including into 2025.” Group business, he added, is making a very strong comeback.
Commented Block, “Coming out of Covid, no one knew what to expect. But last year we added 300 agencies in the US representing $275 million growth in preferred suppliers alone. And just last month we brought in more new members than we did in January 2023.”
He also elaborated on the group’s Leaders Alliances – groups within the group. They comprise experts in Honeymoons and Destination Weddings; Technology; Independent Advisors; and Luxury. “It’s very much a peer-to-peer sharing - no one can just sit by and learn.” Even so, some 26% of applicants are actually declined membership in the Alliances (48% of those who apply to join the Honeymoons and Destination Weddings Group, which average $1M in sales in the category).
Block also highlighted TLN’s diverse training including webinars as well as “vignettes” of 15 minutes or less, 3 hour workshops and more. TLN averages 23 training sessions per month and now has some 1,300 in their archives.
“This is truly the golden age of the travel advisor,” he added. “In my 40-plus years in travel I’ve never seen such a reversal as this one,” referring to the switch from consumers booking directly to reverting to using travel agents.
“Destinations are too numerous and itineraries are too complex: the search for travel agents on Google is at an all time high. And luxury is by far the hot button in leisure travel.”
And as McGillivray commented: “If there’s a silver lining to Covid this is it. The consumer has learned that travel is not without its perils.” Over 60% of people in the elite income level are using travel agents: up a whopping 29%.
James – who this year celebrates 25 years with TLN - was also very positive when providing her update from our side of the border. “It was a banner year, for sure. We added 42 agencies in Canada and sales were up 108% in the ‘Fun and Sun’ (ITC) sector alone. And cruising is now 35% of our business.”
TLN also has a lead generation program – which many consumers find when they Google “Canadiantravelagents.ca”. And the average sale to a consumer who has found the agent with the skills and expertise they were looking for is $6,000. In addition, the group is touting its Toby A.I. marketing content tool providing writing, images and more – available to their advisors for free for one year.
A big date on TLN’s calendar, its annual North American EDGE conference, will be held in National Harbor, near Washington, DC June 7-11. In the interim, to find out more about the group, click here.
