The shifting demographic of an ageing travel industry, particularly among independents, has been highlighted as a pressing issue for the industry by Travellers Choice chief executive Christian Hunter.
Although the 151-strong independent network has added a number of new members this year, with Sydney-based Orange Journeys its newest addition, the growth has been balanced by the departure of some of its older members.
“A lot of the owners are experienced people and not necessarily at the start of their careers and as we bring in new members, we see other members drop off as well,” he told Travel Today.
“Some people close shops because they are retiring, other people consolidate, going from multiple locations to single so as we bring on new members, there’s always the balancing effect.”
However, Hunter stressed that, overall, new additions to the network are delivering a positive impact with Travellers Choice “on track” to this year “at least match if not beat” the record results of the last financial year.
He reported growth in TTV, profitability and preferred sales.
“Members are really focused on supporting our preferreds,” he said. “With our structure, whatever profits we make we distribute back to them as shareholders. That distribution is based on how they support the preferreds so the more they support, the more they enjoy the profits.
“It’s actually a really strong value proposition for them and they really understand how it works.”
Although an aggressive pursuit of prospective new members is not on the cards for Travellers Choice, ensuring new members are of the right “quality” is a priority.
“It’s really about having agents with the right turnover in the right areas,” Hunter said. “We need them to be able to support our preferreds otherwise there’s no value for them or for us.”
A lot of its recent recruitment has been the result of referrals from either existing members or from people approaching the network themselves.
“We haven’t been advertising to solicit membership, we’ve just been focusing on doing what we do really well and have been getting approaches as a result of that,” he said.
“Our focus is on really servicing our existing members as well as we can and being attractive to other members because of what we do not what say.”
Travellers Choice's newest recruit Orange Journeys. Pictured: Christian Hunter, Floris Fluitsma and Bruce Russ.
