MISSISSAUGA — It was another record-breaking turnout for Travel Leaders Network’s latest Canadian Fall Regional event, this one taking place yesterday in Toronto-West where over 300 suppliers and travel advisors were in attendance.

Following Regionals in Edmonton and Vancouver last week, with 160 and 180 guests, respectively, yesterday’s Toronto-West stop at Hilton Mississauga capped off a hugely successful, three-city tour designed to build on the momentum gained from the company’s EDGE conference, held this past May in Nashville. Each city stop included over three hours of workshops or panels covering such topics as technology, marketing and training, a one-hour trade show and cocktail reception, and a full-course plated dinner featuring sponsor presentations and prize giveaways. 

According to Christine James, Travel Leaders Network Vice President Canada, the high turnout is reflective of the company’s exceptional year in sales. 

“Last year was amazing – we weren’t expecting 2022 to be that healthy, especially since no one was travelling in Q1 due to Omicron. And yet, despite having only three quarters, 2022 ended up beating 2019 numbers, our best year in the travel industry,” said James. “This year, we’re way outpacing 2022 numbers. Bookings for a particular partner might have gone up, say, 25% over 2022, but their revenue may have also gone up by 50%. So people aren’t only travelling, they’re also spending much more.”

To accommodate this unprecedented volume of sales, James highlighted two new offerings for the company’s members. First, a new AI program launching by year’s end that will help travel advisors perform a range of functions, from building out itineraries to enhancing their Agent Profiles, to composing sensitive emails to irate clients. As an added bonus, Travel Leaders Network will be paying the program’s fee for a full year for its members, through its Agent Universe. 

Interest in Artificial Intelligence has reached a fever pitch among Travel Leaders Network’s members, with over 700 tuning into a three-hour webinar last month hosted by acclaimed AI trainer Dave Birss. Subsequent to that, many members downloaded the company’s 102-page guide to using AI for travel agencies, covering such key areas as crafting detailed prompts and building a personality profile for AI to use when writing for individual advisors. 

“I think the fact that we’re doing something in the AI space is a big deal because it really is the way of the future,” said James. “And with our new AI program, our marketing team did their due diligence and found something that’s going to be very valuable for the majority of our membership. Plus, we’re offering it for free for a year, I don’t know anybody else doing this right now.”

Secondly, as the only consortium with a preferred agreement with Sirev, SoftVoyage’s B2B booking platform offers members significant savings over the market costs. Travel Leaders Network will also be launching an enhanced version of SIRVA, SoftVoyage’s B2C platform that rolled out during the pandemic. Featuring a more streamlined and efficient user experience, the enhanced version comes at a considerable price tag, a cost that Travel Leaders Network will fund on its members behalf.

“Right now we have 30 subscribers for the enhanced SIRVA and we’re hoping that number will go up and that it will attract new members to join the organization. The fact that we’re not passing the cost onto our members is huge,” said James.

Christine James, Travel Leaders Network Vice President Canada

SUNWING & WESTJET TALK MERGER 

During yesterday’s Land & Insurance panel, David Wright, Director of Sales, Ontario for Sunwing, and Sevi Anagnostis, Key Account Manager for WestJet Vacations, addressed travel advisors’ concerns about WestJet’s acquisition of Sunwing, which was completed in May 2023. In the past month, news broke that the WestJet Group plans to integrate Sunwing Airlines into WestJet Airlines by October 2024, and that the Group’s new vacation division, Sunwing Vacations Group, now includes five vacation and retail travel brands: Sunwing Vacations and WestJet Vacations, U.S. tour operator Vacation Express, and travel retailers SellOffVacations.com and Luxe Destination Weddings.  

Wright and Anagnostis were asked by advisors how the merger will impact future bookings, with both stressing the importance of three words: business as usual.

“It’s going to be business as usual for a while,” said Wright. “The companies have decided to take a very, very slow-paced approach to everything. I saw a PowerPoint presentation just yesterday that included slide after slide of projects that have to do with the integration of the two companies and it was mind boggling. There’s so much work involved with this, so the thought of doing this in a very slow, methodical manner is exactly how it’s going to be when I say business as usual.”

Wright did hypothesize how the two brands may be categorized in the future, adding: “When the two companies really come together, maybe there’ll be a situation where certain destinations are WestJet Vacations destinations, or maybe some brands of hoteliers might be under Sunwing Vacations exclusively, I don’t know. All of these things are being talked about right now behind the scenes.”

Speaking for WestJet Vacations, Anagnostis confirmed that meetings are taking place to discuss where the two brands can merge synergies in a way that makes sense. 

“As you know, we’re two very different companies. Sunwing is more charter, we’re more scheduled. The fact that it’s going to take the airline a year to integrate should tell you something about what’s happening on the vacation side as well, which has far more complexities with all the different hotel partners, transfers and more,” she said.

“One thing we do know with the airlines is that in the future, when you get on be it a Sunwing or aircraft package, that the aircraft will be one service offering consistent across the board,” Anagnostis added.  

GUARANTEES FOR THIS WINTER?

While sitting in the hot seat, Wright and Anagnostis also fielded questions from advisors about the upcoming winter season, and what guarantees they have that this year won’t be a repeat of last winter, which was marred by flight delays and cancellations.

“We had issues in Saskatchewan and Regina last year, with us cancelling flights at the last minute due to issues like having no pilots. Our executive team spent many months looking at this winter in terms of what we have planned, how many pilots we have, how much crew and planes we have,” said Wright. 

“We’ve taken a very good approach in the sense of not having as many flights back to back to back like we used to. There are some gaps in there now, which were needed because we had a horrendous reputation of having one flight delay and all of a sudden 17 flights get delayed because flights were so back-to-back. So now there are gaps in there to alleviate that, and we’re very confident with what we have planned for next winter,” he added.

Anagnostis emphasized the fact that it’s not just one issue, but several. 

“There are so many parts to it, from the baggage handlers to NavCanada to security and more. I think we all need to take responsibility, though obviously there are things out of our control, like the snowstorm that happened all across Canada last winter,” she said. 

“We do have a team in place to really take a look at the issue because it’s not in our nature to disrupt travel plans.. So we have a team that monitors what’s happening and how we manage it through the winter months because those are the biggest months that we have issues. But it is a bigger issue than just the airlines, one that the government needs to address.”

Travel Leaders Network’s 2024 EDGE Conference will be returning to National Harbor in Washington, DC, which hosted the conference in 2019. Dates have yet to be announced. For more information go to https://www.travelleadersnetwork.ca/.