Luxury Escapes’ Agent Hub has surpassed 5,000 registered agents, but Glen Kilpatrick says the business is only getting started.
Six months into leading the Tours and Wholesale division, Kilpatrick is focused on turning Agent Hub into a platform travel advisors rely on every day, with simplified commissions, new product development including private jet tours, and further growth opportunities ahead.
Travel Weekly spoke with Kilpatrick about his vision for Agent Hub, the opportunity in the trade and why he believes Luxury Escapes’ biggest competitor isn’t another wholesaler.
How does the Tours and Wholesale division fit within Luxury Escapes’ broader business structure?
I’m privileged to lead two high-growth areas of the business through Agent Hub and Tours.
I report into the executive leadership team via our Chief Revenue Officer and sit firmly within the commercial division with direct accountability for growth strategy and execution.
Luxury Escapes moves quickly, but with increasing precision. We’re highly data-driven and have an extraordinary depth of customer, product and trading insight available to us. That means we can identify an opportunity, build the commercial case and move forward with confidence when the numbers support it.
Has your role at Infinity helped you in your role at Luxury Escapes?
Absolutely. A career working with travel agents changed the way I think about B2B partnerships.
The agent isn’t simply our customer. The traveller is our collective customer and the best outcomes come when both businesses work together around that shared responsibility.
A strong agent relationship also has enormous lifetime value. Great agents are fiercely loyal to their clients, and their advocacy carries across an entire portfolio. Supporting that relationship properly creates far more value than short-term protectionism ever will.
What inspired you to take up the role at Luxury Escapes?
I’ve always admired Luxury Escapes for the strength of the brand, its commitment to the customer, the quality and exclusivity of the product and its reputation with Aussie travellers. It’s a brand and product I’m genuinely proud to represent.
The addressable market and headroom for growth are enormous. It had to be the right opportunity to take me away from an excellent role, team and leader in the aged care industry and bring me back to travel. This was the right role, where the ambition and opportunity matched my own.
The culture also resonated: high expectations, direct communication, strong work ethic, a genuine focus on the collective result and a work-from-office culture built around learning and collaboration.
You’re based in Brisbane. Can you tell us more about the new office there?
It’s our first permanent footprint in Queensland, overlooking the river at South Bank, with three permanent team members and a fourth joining shortly.
It’s been great to see Luxury Escapes back us north of the border and give us a home to grow our presence in the state.
The office helps us attract strong Brisbane-based talent, host partners, bring regional and interstate colleagues together and build the LE culture locally.
You’re about six months into the role now. What have been your biggest wins or proudest achievements so far?
There’s been plenty to be proud of across both Agent Hub and Tours.
Agent Hub now has more than 5,000 registered agents, with more than 200 new agents joining in June and repeat booking behaviour continuing to grow. It’s moving from something agents trial into an important part of their toolkit, which is exactly where we want it.
I’m proud to lead a team of highly experienced BDMs across Agent Hub and equally proud to work alongside one of the best tour product procurement teams in the industry.
The pace of product creation has been exciting. We’re developing commercially viable new travel styles and destinations, including private jet charter tours which are genuinely unique and difficult to replicate through traditional touring models.
Our talent-led touring program is evolving quickly too, bringing bold personalities and genuine expertise into distinctive product.
Across Agent Hub, I’m proud of the pace of improvement in the platform, product and commercial model. That’s been clear through lived experience and the feedback we’re receiving from retail partners.
We’ve also simplified commission. Agents can earn 10 per cent on accommodation and 12 per cent on Tours as standard, with regular margin maximiser opportunities.
The philosophy is simple: make it easy, make agents look good and make the partnership commercially valuable.
Has anything surprised you since starting about the market, agents’ needs or internal operations?
The depth of capability inside Luxury Escapes is inspiring, particularly across tech, data and product.
Our speed to market across product and platform improvements is a genuine advantage. Agent feedback can move quickly from a conversation into a prioritised improvement, supported by the data and a clear commercial case.
I’ve also been surprised by how many legacy perceptions still persist in the trade.
There’s a huge opportunity in communicating the basics clearly and consistently. Agents can book Luxury Escapes product, access exclusive offers, earn strong predictable commission and use a platform designed to make their job easier.
Once that becomes clear, the response has been consistently strong.
You mentioned deepening agency relationships across Australia and New Zealand first with global expansion further out. What needs to happen domestically before you look at international markets?
Australia and New Zealand are both active growth markets for us now.
The focus is scale, habit and consistency. We want Agent Hub to become the one-stop shop agents rely on across accommodation, packages, Tours and increasingly air.
That means exclusive product, competitive pricing, predictable margin and a platform which keeps improving. We want agents using it regularly, telling us where the friction sits and helping us sharpen it into the best possible tool for their business.
We now have BDMs based in VIC, NSW, QLD and NZ with broader coverage across their portfolios.
There’s already strong engagement from the UK and North America, with inquiry growing across APAC. We see significant opportunity to build into that momentum and expand our footprint globally.
Longer term, there’s also an interesting opportunity to consider what a broader Luxury Escapes retail model could look like. There’s plenty of runway ahead.
Who do you see as your main competitors in the wholesale space?
Our biggest competitor is noise.
Agents have no shortage of product, platforms and messages competing for attention. Our job is to cut through with a proposition that’s easy to understand and valuable to use.
Agent Hub brings together accommodation, packages and Tours, supported by competitive pricing, exclusive value, clear commission and one of the strongest consumer travel brands in the market.
Our breadth of partner product, combined with owned product in areas such as Tours, gives us a level of differentiation which is difficult to replicate.
Tours are a major part of that proposition. Small groups, generally capped at 24 guests, guaranteed departures from two passengers and 12 per cent commission as standard.
The goal is straightforward. We want Agent Hub to become habitual because it’s easy, commercially strong, friction-free and helps agents deliver a cracking outcome for their clients.
