Shelley Poten, the managing director of Albatross Tours is one of the most influential women in the travel industry with a wealth of experience across the Flight Centre Travel Group as well as executive leadership.

In this exclusive interview ahead of our 2024 Women In Travel Awards, we touch on her journey to the top as well as the tricky things about niche offerings and of course her advocacy for women in our industry!

Find out how you can enter the awards here. 

You started out at Flight Centre, tell us about your journey from there to your current role?

I’ve spent the past 23 years in the Travel Industry, with 22 of those years in retail and corporate travel agencies; beginning as a Travel Advisor when I was a Teenager at Jetset, then working for Tourism QLD in my twenties, before finding a home with the Flight Centre Travel Group for the past 19 years. That’s taken me around the world with so many opportunities, particularly living in Chicago in my twenties with the group. I held senior leadership roles in various Flight Centre brands in Australia for the past 15 years before I joined Albatross last year in June. What attracted me most to Albatross Tours was the Company Values; Professional, Human, and Win/Win, which are closely aligned with my personal values.

Shelley Poten with Roslyn Wyatt and Jessica Taylor Travel Associates Hawthorne.

What are the pros/cons of moving into a niche offering?

The pros are that I can really focus on the quality and refinement of our product, the elevation of our customer experience, and the quality and depth of our agency partnerships at a really intimate and impactful level. We are a small-group, European Tour operator who only market to the long-range, Australian and New Zealand markets – so very niche! The ability I have now to be involved at the real grassroots level is far greater compared to my prior role, being responsible for Corporate Travel services and the plentitude of corporate travel products and technology that involves. I would say the cons are that like any small business, you have a finite amount of time and resources, so making the best decisions on how you apply those to maximise your business outcomes becomes even more important. Achieving share of voice in the diverse and flourishing travel industry can be a real challenge for Niche operators and requires some different thinking.

How do you generally make daily business decisions?

What I love most about being a generalist is the diversity of your days, and the opportunities it brings to expand your knowledge across all disciplines. I am a reflector, so when making daily decisions I like to ensure I have enough time to reflect on the choice I am making, balanced with being decisive enough to make decisions quickly to ensure the business is agile and responsive. I also believe the quality of your critical thinking and decision making is closely linked with the people you surround yourself with; having a high-trust, high-performance team is essential to having the right information and discussions to make good decisions.

Why do we still need awards like the WIT awards?

Until the legal, social and economic barriers to women’s empowerment around the world have been removed, events like the WIT awards are critical to promoting gender equality, which is a fundamental human right. In The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023 referenced by the UN, we are 140 years away from women being represented equally in positions of power and leadership in the workplace; that means the children of today won’t live to see it at the rate of current change. It’s so important for us to create change at a faster rate through events like WIT, and to address unconscious biases and implicit associations that form an unintended and often invisible barrier to equal opportunity.

This interview is part of our Women in Travel series ahead of the 2024 Women in Travel Awards. The awards celebrate women who have achieved astronomic success in their professional arenas, celebrating their invaluable contribution to the industry through leadership, innovation and courage.

This year the theme is ‘Follow her lead’ and we’ll be championing the power of community and women in the industry working together to create the best experiences possible for Australian travellers.

Women from all levels of business are encouraged to enter the awards program, which features 20 categories covering every corner of the industry. That includes three new categories, Rail, Tech and Woman of Year.

What are you waiting for, ENTER NOW!

Buy your earlybird tickets HERE.