The business was acquired by Australia-based Flight Centre Travel Group earlier in 2023 for £121 million, a move which among many things has provided a ‘test centre’ for seeing how the operator’s portfolio could be made available to agents, the company’s chief executive Sonia Davies said.

“You could say we have soft launched this internally, by wholesaling within the group currently, and this is allowing us to understand what retail agents need from us within the Flight Centre UK family and to test and learn,” Davies told TTG Luxury.

“We would then like to see how we can expand that outside the business to other agents in 2024; this is not something we are going to rush, we want to make absolutely sure we take a measured approach and understand what agents need from us before we go external,” she added.

Davies promised resource would be brought into the business to grow this part of the business – “we’re very thoughtful of what we need to do and get this right” she said.

“We will ensure the right members of our team are allocated to working with agents, and we already have Simon [Lynch, global sales and product director], who knows the agent community from past roles,” she said. “It’s our brand and agents’ reputations that will be under scrutiny with something new like this, so we want to get it right, with the right processes, training and commercial structures in place.”

She suggested Scott Dunn’s Explorers – the operator’s unique family proposition around kids’ clubs at leading hotels and resorts worldwide – could be of particular interest and use to agents, with a long experience of creating a family-first product portfolio.

“How can we open this up to the agent community – this is what we are asking, as this is something different and unique, and we feel agents would benefit from it for their customers,” Davies said.

Going for growth

The operator was founded in 1986 and has offices in London, Singapore, San Diego and New York, with Davies saying the business had been experiencing “double digit growth”.

Currently, 70% of business comes from the UK; 25% from the US; and 5% out of Singapore. “We really see that growing in all regions too – we will particularly accelerate the focus on the US in the next three years,” she added.

Davies said the Flight Centre acquisition had been absolutely the right move for the 37-year-old business.

“Flight Centre is a great owner – they understand travel so well and really invest in people, and when we were in the midst of the pandemic and considering a transition, it was these elements that made me think they would be a good fit for us,” she recalled.

On growing into the cruise sector, Davies said this was “not something we have really delved into much before”.

“But we intend to be much more serious about cruise now, and we certainly know that Flight Centre has a lot of relationships in this area and we want to open that up to Scott Dunn customers too. We’re building up the knowledge and passion in the wider team for cruise, as no-one has really championed it before,” she said.  

She added there was an opportunity to fold Scott Dunn’s expertise in family travel into cruise too.

“We see those two coming together as a real untapped opportunity. We also know that other client bases such as Singapore and the US are big cruisers, so we can develop it for them too,” she said.

Changes are also afoot to Scott Dunn Private, the operator’s segment of clients who have a particularly high spend threshold or a high level of experiential travel needs, and benefit from an elevated level of service and “guest first” approach.

Ciara Hurley Stewart has joined the business as head of membership for Scott Dunn Private, bringing with her many years of experience with Asprey. She will be working alongside Jules Maury, head of Scott Dunn Private and regularly named as one of the best travel specialists in the world.

“Jules and Ciara are the greatest match – Jules is steeped in luxury travel and Ciara comes from the world of luxury goods, and they are both thinking about how we can offer the benefit of the very best partnerships to our customers,” said Davies. “At the core is how do we curate the perfect trip for each client. We could be working on trips up to two or three years in advance and constantly discussing and unpicking how people like to travel and what will add value for them.”

But she added the custom of the HNWIs who book with Scott Dunn must not be taken for granted, with current economic uncertainties meaning even this level of clients would be constantly assessing how much they invest in all areas, including travel.

“They are a resilient part of our customer base and want to continue travelling of course, but it’s about making sure we bring the very best ideas to them,” she said. “We’re in the process of reviewing Scott Dunn Private to articulate exactly what we can offer and refreshing the proposition.”

She added that Scott Dunn was enjoying one of its best ever trading periods. “No-one can predict demand at the moment, but it’s still good currently, we are well up on last year and conversions are strong,” Davies said. “To be honest, we have stopped even comparing to 2019, as we are just a much stronger and more profitable business now than the one that went into the pandemic.

“We are still seeing top-heavy airline prices, but clients still have a certain budget in mind, so it’s a case of working within that, maybe suggesting more indirect routes, or switch-selling to something where there might be an all-inclusive proposition; you have to listen to them and see what they really want, and where they will get value,” she said.

People power

From a team perspective, Davies said Scott Dunn was also growing its number of Africa, Middle East and Asia experts. “We’re in a constant cycle of quarterly recruitment to make sure we have who we need, and we would rather on-board a collection of new colleagues together, who can learn with each other and go through our process,” she explained.

She said all new joiners go through a Scott Dunn ‘boot camp’ to bring them along together and learn the operator’s way of doing things. “We help them discover what Scott Dunn is about and what luxury means to us and our customers and by having these consistent rounds of new intake colleagues, we can put more dedicated focus into them all at once.”

Davies added that the post-pandemic recruitment cycle had come full circle, with those who previously would have held onto secure positions when they needed to, and still could, are now beginning to look beyond their comfort zone for new opportunities.

She said Scott Dunn was also looking to “grow our own talent”. “There seems to be more vacancies out there than ever before: I think people are moving around a lot more now, post-pandemic,” she said. “So you have to be able to encourage loyalty and perhaps continue looking to diverse sources to find talent – they might not have sales background, they might not even have travel experience, but if they are the right fit for Scott Dunn, we can bring them through the business with us.”