Introducing Tisson Travel Group

As a Calgary-based travel agent, Tannis Dyrland saw a need to develop a travel community that focused on prioritizing the wants and needs of the travel trade in Alberta.

“There’s a real disconnect being an agent in Western Canada from the rest of the travel agencies in this country — especially belonging to a host agency that was based in Eastern Canada. It just didn’t make sense to me why I had to continually use suppliers in Eastern Canada. If we needed support, we were trying to reach people out east and definitely not with on our timezone, that whole disconnect,” Dyrland told Travel Courier. “We have a really great presence in Western Canada and I wanted to be able to lean on them more and also create an understanding of what we deal with in the West. During COVID, Transat completely pulled out of Western Canada — they’re not an option for us — but they remained a preferred supplier with the host agency that we were with.”

This week the owner of Travel With Tannis officially launched Tisson Travel Group, which aims to be a platform where travel leaders in Alberta can thrive and excel.

“It just got to the point where I really wanted to create something where agents in Alberta felt supported and felt heard and felt understood,” she explained. “So taking on more of advocacy role as well as an empowerment role for people in our industry, to really feel seen and heard and to feel supported. I thought I’m going to create a community of travel agents, not a host agency, but a community where agents can feel like they have support and they have somebody working for them and building those relationships with suppliers in Western Canada.”

Already, she said the venture has been well received by suppliers.

“The void is definitely the understanding of the Western market. And the lack of lift and availability that we have. The other day Air Canada pulled out of Calgary — direct flights to Cancun — we can’t get them anymore. How does that even begin to make sense? It’s things like that where I need to create a heightened awareness and support for these individuals,” she added. “Where it is different from a host agency is we’re still part of a consortia. We’re part of TRAVELSAVERS, which is that great partnership to have, but we don’t have the preferred approved suppliers list. The agents, they’re free to use whoever they want to be their preferred supplier, whoever they have strong relationships and foundations with. We are, right now, a group of six and if we get to 10, we get to 10. I’m not looking to be big, I’m looking to be strong. And I’m also wanting these women to feel empowered to run their businesses with a really strong support base behind them.”

Notably, when it comes to fees, Tisson Travel Group charges merchant fees but doesn’t split commissions on service fees.

“We’ve always been huge proponents of service fees, and especially since COVID, our industry has really been talking a lot about the necessity of agents charging service fees. But where I was really struggling was you’ve got agents who are valuing their time, who are putting in an hourly value on the work that they do as a professional and then the host agencies were taking a percentage split of that and I thought, that’s wrong. That’s them valuing their time,” she says. “That’s not anything on behalf of a negotiated contract or anything like that they shouldn’t be losing on what they’re valuing their time at so I’m not doing commission splits on service fees.”

Another differentiator is that Tisson Travel Group isn’t looking to train new agents.

“We are a group of experienced agents who have been in the business for a while and are just looking for a way to elevate what we already have, and looking for those better connections, but we’re not in the business of taking on new agents and training new agents,” she notes. “So when they are running their own businesses, they feel like they’ve got somebody who understands them and is backing them and giving them the information and speaking to the right people in the proper channels so that they can better run their business. They’re all independent contractors, they’re all running their own businesses. They have to feel empowered to do so and they have to feel like they’ve been given the tools to do so.”

As for the story behind the name, Dyrland says she was searching for what she wanted to the business to encompass.

“It was really about making your mark and thinking outside of the box and anybody who knows me knows that I’m constantly thinking outside of the box and pushing the envelope,” she says.  “Tisson was basically just the definition of being creative within your within your craft and really designing what the outcome needs to look like that works for you.”

During the pandemic Dyrland launched creative marketing concepts to ensure that once travel rebounded, her business would thrive. She also supplemented her business by creating Mile High Cocktails — conveniently sized cocktail kits with ingredients to make specialty drinks on the go — including 10,000 feet in the air. Concepts like a bold marketing initiative called The F*ck it List also led to her winning awards like AMResorts’ inaugural BeAmazing awards for exceptional achievement in creativity and innovation in travel. 

For agents interested in learning more, they can reach out online here.