Beyond Borders on The Road Sydney brought together 50 travel professionals on Monday night for an evening of airline updates, advocacy intelligence, accreditation insights, surcharging news, and a hands-on marketing masterclass.
The event, held at Cover-More’s North Sydney office and sponsored by TravelPay, included a programme that covered the issues that matter most to travel businesses right now.
- Qatar Airways – direct operational update in the context of the ongoing Middle East conflict
- ATIA CEO update, including proprietary consumer sentiment research members described as immediately actionable
- ATIA advocacy update from director Advocacy and Policy Ingrid Fraser on three live campaigns, including a win that saved every ATIA-accredited travel agent and tour operator $14,000 in setup costs and $8,000 per year in ongoing fees
- Compliance and accreditation deep-dive from ATIA’s director of Compliance and Membership, Nina Hedges
- TravelPay surcharging briefing on the upcoming RBA changes
- Marketing masterclass from Nicole O’Sullivan and Chris Fundell on personal branding, social media, and converting leads into revenue and members left with a practical worksheet
- Networking with peers, the ATIA team, and corporate partners
Nina Hedges, ATIA Director of Compliance, opened her session by telling the room that ATIA is like tuna. It’s what ATIA rejects that makes ATIA accredited businesses the best.
Last year, 22 per cent of businesses that applied for ATIA accreditation were either turned away or voluntarily withdrew because they knew they wouldn’t meet the standard. ATIA accreditation means something because not everyone gets in.
CEO Dean Long detailed the intense effort the ATIA team and Board put in when the Middle East situation deteriorated on Sunday 1 March, with the team swinging into action from 5am to give members the facts and the communications tools to stop cancellations and reinforce client confidence.
“The most common piece of feedback we got was that people didn’t expect to have so much fun,” he said. “Compliance. Accreditation. Advocacy. Public policy. These are not words that make people rush to register for an event. But every single thing we covered has a direct consequence for how your business operates, what it earns, and what protects it when something goes wrong.
“That’s what the room walked away understanding, and that’s exactly what we’re going for with this series so please make sure you get to BBOTR.”
On top of the real-world disruption, a leading aviation expert was misquoted in a major newspaper and the claim repeated on the country’s top-rating breakfast television programme, urging Australians to cancel all forward travel for the next five months.
ATIA tracked down the expert, secured a joint statement correcting the record, arranged for Long to appear on Seven Midday News as well as widely across mainstream media to set the story straight, and turned around a member-ready video the same day for distribution across every major network and consortia.
What members said
“I was in Europe on holidays when the news of the Middle East situation broke. A client emailed me at 7am saying she’d been told to cancel and she was due to make a $30,000 payment in the coming week. I went straight to the ATIA updates, forwarded them to her, and she calmed down immediately. It stopped me from panicking while I was on holidays. I had no cancellations. None and I’ve had clients booking for Europe today for next month.”
Erika Affolter, MTA Mobile Travel Agents
“Definitely attend. 100 per cent worth it. You’ll get to interact with great people, meet the ATIA team and learn some valuable lessons and insights.”
Adam Israel, Envoyage
“I was surprisingly interested in all the different topics. The compliance piece I found very comforting, actually. It’s like a safety net. And it’s something to be proud of. It’s on my signature block.”
Emma Grose, MTA Mobile Travel Agents
The series continues in Brisbane on 20 May, Adelaide on 20 July, and Perth on 22 July, before culminating in the flagship Beyond Borders Travel Summit later on 09 October in Melbourne.
