One-on-one with Christine James

It was good news, good news and more good news as TL Network wrapped up its three Fall Regional Events in Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto during the last week of October, with the group’s Canadian vice president, Christine James observing that each of the Regionals saw “great engagement” from members attending. 

The events, which featured lots of networking, workshops, panel sessions, a tradeshow, cocktail reception and a dinner attracted 160 in Edmonton, 180 in Vancouver and 280 in Toronto, with James describing those results as an “amazing turnout” of members and suppliers. 

During the panel sessions at the Regionals, members got an update on the business outlook for TL Network that covered 2022, the fall-winter 2023 and into 2024. 

In conversation with Travel Courier following the events, James explained that “from a high-level perspective, 2022 was beyond expectations,” pointing out that the first quarter of that year was plagued with the Omicron strain of COVID running rampant, “so the fact that in the last three quarters of 2022 we exceeded 2019 numbers was amazing.” 

She continued: “We thought that was because there was the revenge travel aspect coming into play, that’s what was driving those numbers in those three quarters [in 2022] and I was a little bit hesitant when I was setting my budget for 2023, whether we would see that kind of aggressive pick up.”

Well, clearly there was no need to be hesitant as James told members that in 2023, TL Network is “exceeding 2022 numbers by double digits and what I’m seeing is not only is the passenger count is going up, in some cases, the revenue has doubled – if you see a 15% increase in passengers, you see a 30% increase in revenue – which is incredible and which means more people are travelling and people who are travelling want to invest more in their vacation experience.”

That’s a trend that played neatly into the Power Speaker session featuring Carlo Trinidad, Business Development Manager, Western Canada for the Inclusive Collection, part of the World of Hyatt at all three of the Regionals. 

Trinidad talked to TL Network members about the evolution of all-inclusive vacations and how members can elevate a typical vacation package experience for their clients and, in the bargain, increase their overall commission earnings. 

Considering that all-inclusives continue to account for the bulk of TL Network members’ business in Canada, Trinidad’s tips and advice were more than timely as the industry moves into the busy winter 2023-2024 season. 

As for what’s new at TL Network, in her conversation with Travel Courier, James talked about the group’s social media initiatives; its specialist programs; its agent profile program; technology initiatives, including artificial intelligence; and more. 

With social media, James said that TL Network has introduced a social media kit for members to help them “play in the social media arena” and has training sessions – both recorded and live – to support that initiative. 

“What we’re finding is that more and more of our members are participating in those sessions. Reactions from members are great and they’re using the tips that the sessions provide and [those tips are] working for members. So, we’ve seen real movement in that [area,]” James said. 

Another area where James said TL Network has “seen real pick up and adoption” from its members” is the group’s Luxury Specialist program.

“This is an optional program and there is a cost to it, but we’re seeing real pick-up on this program by more and more of our advisors,” she said. 

The same is true for TL Network’s Destinations & Honeymoons specialist program; its Leisure specialist program, which is for members who are hiring new advisors – staff that is new to the industry – and those members don’t have their own internal training program on how to be a travel agent. There are also specialist programs for Adventure and Business. 

As for what’s coming in 2024, James said that AI (artificial intelligence) is “top of mind.”

“Travel Leaders will be launching a whole AI program to support our members and basically it will be on how to embrace it and to use it to your advantage and not to fear it,” James told TC. 

She continued: “I think as recent as May [2023] we invited an AI specialist to speak at one of TL’s events and at that point there was still a lot of fear as to whether AI was going to take-over and replace human travel agents and travel advisors … but I think we’ve come a long way since then.”

As James sees it, AI will be a great help to members building their Agent Profile, noting that already “a lot of our board members are saying that they’re using AI now to build their profiles and they’re getting their advisors to use it.”

The profile program is free and right now, just under 1,000 members have published their profiles and when James asked those members who haven’t taken advantage of the program why they haven’t published their profiles they tell her they don’t have time.  

With AI, James said those members can now “feed in their basic qualifications and certifications and then they can tell AI to build content around the basics and I think a lot of them are going to start using that for their profiles. I think we’re going to see a good, healthy pick up in the number of published profiles in 2024.”

Still on the technology, James told TC that Travel Leaders Network will also be launching an enhanced version of SIRRVA, SoftVoyage’s B2C platform that rolled out during the pandemic. 

The new version will feature a more streamlined and efficient user experience, and while the enhanced version comes with a significant start-up cost, that cost will be funded by Travel Leaders Network on behalf of its members. It’s expected that the enhanced version of SIRRVA will be rolled out by the end of 2023.

James also noted that TL Network is the only consortium to offer its members a preferred rate on Sirev – Softvoyage’s B2B platform and “under our agreement if an agency does 15 bookings a month – that’s total bookings – through the platform, they get it for free.”

As for advice to members that was offered during the Regionals, James said that one thing that came up over and over again was service fees. 

She observed that: “If there is one positive that came out of COVID, it’s how much consumers value the guidance of a travel advisor. So now is the time when advisors should not feel sheepish about telling the client in the first conversation that this is my fee. And if a client is really serious they’ll pay it and you can weed out the ones that are just shoppers.”

James continued: “I think we are professionals – you don’t call your doctor, your lawyer or any professional – without being charged, so why shouldn’t travel advisors be charging their clients.”

And while the future is never clear, James told TC that: “Just looking at the numbers for our future bookings for 2024, we’re way ahead from where we were at the same time last year. 

Stay tuned, there’s always more to come from TL Network.