Travel Counsellors (TC) South Africa managed to set a new sales record in June, ending the month 50% up on the previous record, which was set in June 2019.
An elated MD, Mladen Lukic, said sales had been unprecedented. The figures had been achieved just four months after a “watershed February” when most of the strictest travel restrictions had been repealed.
Despite the devastation in travel due to COVID-19, Lukic said the recovery had given travel agents a boost. He also said South Africa’s geographic location, and the need for complex long-haul travel arrangements offered agencies some protection, but added that while business was flying, there were still the complexities of travel to deal with.
Lukic credited the company’s recent success to a digital transformation of almost every TC system that was carried out during the pandemic.
“We have been careful not to use the words ‘go back to before COVID'. It will never be equal. We spoke about a ‘rebuild’.”
Lukic said TC SA’s performance in June had exceeded all expectations, even though, at the time, only a few destinations, like Zanzibar and Maldives, were open for international travel out of South Africa. And then, after South Africa’s favourites like Mauritius and the UK reopened, “omicron came and the gates slammed shut”.
The strength of the individual business owners and ITCs who weathered those storms were instrumental in TC’s success. “We had a very successful business before COVID, so we had a broad base upon which to rebuild. 2019 was a record year for our business; the best year in every metric. Since January and early February 2022, our business has posted record month after record month. In March, we had the biggest BSP figure in the history of Travel Counsellors SA. That means, a month after the gates were opened for us, we recorded the largest volume of sales.
“We have always been a very ambitious business. Double-digit growth in peaceful times was considered ‘lukewarm’. We’re a 15-year-old business and we’ve managed to exceed our expectations, even as ambitious as we are.”
Looking ahead, Lukic identified airline seat capacity constraints as one of the market’s major challenges.
What does the post-pandemic traveller want?
“The requirement from customers is an absolute obsession with detail. Agents need to have access to an enormous amount of information that is fresh, not dated. That’s the reality, and that’s the support we provide for our TCs.”
But Lukic is confident that two pandemic years of in-house system improvements will continue to give TCs an edge and up their confidence to sell by providing immediate access to information. He told Travel News: “We can probably have even bigger growth if we continue this project of digital transformation. It won’t be possible alone. We need supplier systems to work with us. But, we (TC SA) are on a high right now.”
