SEATTLE — The 2019 Ensemble Travel Group International Conference is now underway at the new Hyatt Regency Seattle.

Taking place Oct 23 – 27, the event has brought some 900 Ensemble agency owners and front-line travel advisors from across Canada, the U.S. and Australia to the Seattle conference site, along with preferred partners from around the world.

In his opening remarks yesterday, Ensemble CEO David Harris said that Ensemble Travel Group had the best year in its history in 2018, and that in 2019 Preferred Supplier sales from Ensemble members will pass the $1.4 billion mark, representing 8% year-over-year growth.

“For years, we’ve shared we’re a US$2 billion business with 850 members,” said Harris.

New data and analytics show that the true number of Ensemble’s membership is currently 719 in North America and a further 44 in Australia and New Zealand for a grand total of 763 member locations worldwide.

But, he added, “very importantly, from a macro standpoint, our footprint is actually about twice as big.”

Harris noted that “for years, per our membership structure, we’ve basically only tracked our managed business. We’ve concentrated on that to facilitate tracking and compensation of our shareholders.

“The truth is, we’ve done this to the detriment of capturing the full value of our unmanaged business – our Total Travel Value – which is a wealth of untapped potential for everyone here.

“Thanks to very recent analytics efforts by our resourceful and talented team, we can now validate, that our unmanaged air business alone represents over $1.5 billion annually in North America.

“When you include airline web and online sales, GDS sales in Canada, and all unmanaged air sales, non-preferred supplier sales from our members, Ensemble has an industry footprint that’s at least $4 billion of business.”

Harris said Ensemble’s strategy is to “power forward” to deliver on five fundamental pillars for its members. Those pillars are: build skills and training; create unique product offerings; innovative partnerships; analytics that create efficiency; and a holistic approach.

Harris also talked about sustainability and the travel industry. “We’re all aware that climate and sustainability are fast becoming the biggest issues across the globe. With people making more than 7 billion trips annually, sustainability is increasingly impacting our industry.

“More and more travellers are doing business with agencies that factor things like environmental and social sustainability into their travel planning equation.

“Put another way, increasingly people are traveling with purpose.

“Here at Ensemble, and with support from our supplier partners, we continue to research ways for our members to be a part of the solution, not the problem.”

With that goal in mind Ensemble will be announcing some new partnerships that will help members educate and help clients travel consciously, said Harris. “This will not only be good for our planet but also could be a real differentiator for us and members like you.”

Harris added that the 2019 Ensemble conference tote bags are made from plant fibres, and the conference shirts are made from recycled plastic bottles. Delegates also received personal reusable water bottles. Reusable chalkboard signs were used throughout the space to reduce the use of paper.

Raffle donations are going towards we.org and some items in the event’s live auction will include trips for Tourism Cares relief efforts for Hurricane Dorian.