Barry Mayo

TravelManagers Chairman, Barry Mayo says last week’s report from the Travel Compensation Fund stating that 228 licensed travel agencies are losing money and about 800 travel agencies are turning over less than $1 million dollars per annum is not surprising.

“The travel industry is constantly changing and the public are demanding a different type of service. The home-based consulting model is going from strength to strength because it has not only recognized this need but is delivering it.”

Mayo says a traditional bricks and mortar approach to travel incurs avoidable costs making the model untenable for those turning over less than a million or losing money.

“With no costs associated with either owning or renting premises, TravelManagers offers a logical solution for those losing money or smaller agencies. Home-based consulting is the perfect solution for reducing operating costs and converting a loss making travel agency into a profitable business or improving the profitability of travel agencies turning over less than $1 million dollars annually.”

Mayo says many of these agencies are operated by good owner/consultants but the stress of overheads associated with a traditional agency holds them back as a business.

“The TravelManagers’ model enables a very simple and effective solution that is almost immediate for any of the 228 loss making agencies. In fact I strongly believe that TravelManagers could offer a more profitable way of operating their existing businesses for any travel agencies with turnover of $3m or less.”

Mayo says you only need to do the sums.

“Our model means no overheads, no staff costs and no franchise fees for a start. TravelManagers offers the highest commissions, including no mark ups on private and net airfares. In addition to our IT systems and programmes being state-of-the-art, our personal travel managers have access to all TravelManagers’ systems 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year.”

Mayo says their personal travel managers maintain ownership of their client data base while utilizing in-house marketing support including fortnightly eNewsletters.

“Our technology is such that to the client it appears to have come directly from their personal travel manager plus they can add in their own personal message.”

Mayo says education and support are key elements of TravelManagers business model.

“We have five state based business partnership managers in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney whose job is specifically to support and assist with the conversion from an existing business structure and systems to TravelManagers and the communication of this to existing clients. It is an incredibly thorough process making it very simple for people joining TravelManagers.”

TravelManagers provides regular training and business development meetings including frequent Webinars and access to supplier famils, many of them exclusive to our personal travel manager network. There is also a consumer website designed to direct consumer inquiries to the national personal travel manager network enabling them to build on existing business.

“Our personal travel managers’ wellbeing is always top of mind in our developments of how we support them. I have no doubt that is why we now have over 350 personal travel managers and are the largest home-based consultancy in Australia.”