The renewed drive on improving its offering to members was launched two years ago, and has seen the development of the TTNG’s marketing and members team.

Speaking following the announcement last week that Barrhead Travel had joined TTNG as its newest member, Gary Lewis said the consortium was committed to continue driving its membership engagement.

“It’s about looking at members and thinking ‘how can we make them grow their business?’”, he told TTG. “We’re proactively going out to them now.”

Ways in which the TTNG has helped its members include sending out mail outs to agents’ customers, which are personalised with the agents’ details, as well helping with campaigns and designing marketing and advertising materials for them, all of which Lewis stressed, is included within the membership fee.

A digital marketer is also being brought in to educate members on using social media for their business.

“It’s never too late – all of us can always learn new things,” Lewis said. “To stay relevant can be hard, especially when you just have a small shop with only four or five staff. Our job is to invest in that training for them.”

He said this year had shown how the renewed focus on membership services had paid off. “We’re recruiting 80% of all new entrants into the industry, and have added 12 new members to our Worldchoice and Worldchoice Plus division in the last four months.”

Lewis said the TTNG had also seen more referrals from its current members since February and March, than ever before. “That’s the greatest indication that we’re doing well,” he added.