Collaboration wins the day

29 Mar 2023 - by Sarah Cornwell

Travel Counsellors GM South Africa, Mladen Lukic.

Travel Counsellors are achieving breakthrough results and shattering 30-year company records as a result of the staggering demand for travel post-COVID, as well as closer co-operation and teamwork between fellow consultants.

TCs are ITCs or sole traders by nature. However, Steve Byrne, global CEO, speaking at the recent Travel Counsellors South Africa annual conference in Cape Town, said as many as one-third of all TCs and 70% of top earners worked in collaboration with other TCs.

He said teamwork and improved technology had helped TCs to maximise productivity and boost their sales turnover.

Travel Counsellors’ business had recovered to 60% above pre-COVID levels globally, Byrne said, while top-producing TCs were selling as much as four times more than before the pandemic.

Better together

Byrne was in South Africa for the first Travel Counsellors annual conference in three years. He said teams (teamwork and private TC networks) were one of the more profound trends to have emerged from the pandemic and gave TCs the headspace to scale up their business or to take precious time out from their work.

Reciprocal arrangements between TCs can be fixed or flexible in terms of hours and payments, and Travel Counsellors facilitates all co-operation agreements. Byrne reiterated: “It allows TCs to play to their strengths and to scale up their businesses.”

Jim Eastwood, Global Sales Director, who was also in Cape Town for the conference, agreed that TCs were winning by working together. He said 50% now worked in teams or employed someone. “They reach a natural ceiling alone.”

New identity

Based on its latest market research, Travel Counsellors believes it can double the size of its business in South Africa in the next 10 years.

A new corporate identity and logo will be launched in South Africa in June. Mladen Lukic, GM South Africa, gave conference-goers a first look at a basket of fresh, new marketing assets and Travel Counsellors’ new branding at the conference. Agents will be able to use the assets across social media to communicate with customers and to market themselves and the Travel Counsellors brand.

Lukic said Travel Counsellors SA had set a R1bn sales target for the next financial year. He believes the result will be achieved faster through teamwork.

“Travel Counsellors was one of the few travel companies that came out of COVID-19 with its reputation enhanced,” commented Byrne. “TCs stayed in touch with customers, kept them up to date and made sure that they got their money back to do their re-bookings.

“One of our rallying cries during COVID-19 was based on something Churchill said: ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’.”

Bumper year for SA

TCs South Africa celebrated a year of consecutive sales records at this year’s conference.

In his conference address, Lukic shared a snapshot of South Africa’s Book of Records, which showed sales for March 2023 were already 42% above March 2022, which had been the best full month on record.

“TCs haven’t just survived, they’ve absolutely conquered. It is an amazing achievement. We are breaking records every day.

“Some TCs have already embraced the concept of teams but we need to make sure we do, to give ourselves the headroom to evolve even further,” said Lukic.