Wholesaler Entire Travel Group’s annual Travel Showcase & Soirée has more than doubled since its 2024 inception, with 65 exhibitors expected to greet around 1000 travel advisors by the time the event wraps in Brisbane tonight.
And that’s not the only good news for the operators, Sales & Marketing director Greg McCallum and managing director Brad McDonnell, with the average booking being four times greater than pre-Covid.
In addition, the pair have also launched Locally Made, a new feature of Entire Travel Group packages, which offer handpicked local exports, support for local communities, insider access, small-group moments, authentic experiences and sustainable travel.
“We work with an incredible range of suppliers, and these people are the best of the best when it comes to passion and skills,” McDonnell said.
“It could be an intimate experience exploring a local wine cellar or learning the secrets of artisan cheese making in France, joining a truffle hunter and his dog in the forests of Italy, or learning about history and culture from a local indigenous woman in Canada.
McDonnell says the development of Locally Made reflects an evolution in the definition of luxury.
“Luxury now is about enjoying experiences that very few people get to do and that create unique memories,” he said.
“It’s about going beyond the big cities, exploring regions and spending time with someone who is deeply connected to their local community and willing to open their door, share their passion and give you an insight into their world.”
Among the Locally Made packages on offer are a nine-day journey in Puglia featuring a stone carving workshop with a master artisan and mozzarella making at an organic farmhouse, a three-day stay in the Loire Valley that includes wine tasting class with a renowned sommelier, and a five-day stay in British Columbia’s Nemiah Valley with wild horse viewing, trail riding and traditional rock fishing with the Tsilhqot’in Nation.
Bigger and better
With larger venues and a wide variety of world-class exhibitors, Entire Travel Group’s 2026 Travel Showcase & Soirée took the event series to new heights.
In addition to representing their existing exhibitor base, including Canada and Alaska, “The Islands”, Europe and Asia, new exhibitors joining the lineup included Viking Cruises, Rail Europe, DriveAway, Singapore Tourism, Thai Airways, Adaaran Maldives, Ayada Maldives and Royal Davui Island Resort in Fiji.
Major categories across the destinations include the Group Journeys program, Rail Journeys program and Barge Journeys, a legacy from one of the original wholesale arms, French Travel Connection.
“We’ve been selling luxury canal barges in France for 20-30 years,” McDonnell said.
The three-city tour kicked off in Melbourne Convention Centre Melbourne on Tuesday night, followed by ILUMINA in Sydney last night and finishes at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre tonight.
The showcase’s earlier February event timing also allowed advisors to get on top of the year ahead after the slow summer, McDonnell said.
“The whole concept is that they can arm themselves with all this new knowledge and expertise they’re getting from our operators and suppliers and tourism boards who are here tonight, so they can go back to the office, hit the ground running, have a high level of knowledge, which means they can convert at a high level as well,” he said.
The pandemic also allowed McDonnell to focus on developing a ground-breaking online booking platform that allows travel advisors to seamlessly customise, quote and book hundreds of exclusive packages.
“One platform, one booking set of conditions, rather than an agent going off to four or five different suppliers… 45 days, 30 days, 60 days, all that kind of stuff,” he said. “That’s where we see our role, and that’s where we see our role growing.
“We see our purpose, for agents in the industry, is to make hard easy.”
And another thing that has gone down particularly well with travel advisors is that there are no passport-style stamps needed after meeting an exhibitor which is usually a requirement to enter the prize draw, which in Entire’s case is worth $140,000.
“We’re now backing the maturity and professionalism of our travel agent partners. And there was a round of applause in Melbourne (Tuesday night) when I mentioned that,” McDonnell said.
The rise of Entire Travel Group has been rapid. It operated as a wide range of well-known wholesale brands (such as CIT and French Travel Connections), before it consolidated all the brands in 2019 under the single Entire Travel Group. Consolidated Travel Group (CTG) acquired a 40 per cent share of the company from joint owners McDonnell and McCallum last year.
