During her short career with Monarch Airlines following a travel and tourism degree, Fletcher often asked to sit in the cockpit for take-off, fixing her gaze straight ahead to suppress the nausea.
Unsurprisingly, she only lasted nine months, but quickly found an opportunity at Gold Medal near her hometown of Preston. Some 27 years later, she’s still there.
Her journey to her current role began in the late 1990s after four years in reservations. “One Christmas party, I told the MD we needed to do more for travel agents. He told me to go and see him on Monday.”
This led to the creation of an agency sales department supporting the small team visiting shops. “We had two people on the road,” Fletcher recalls.
“They needed a conduit in the office. After that, we expanded the team and I became agency sales manager working on Farebank and organising fam trips and events.”
Around seven years ago, Fletcher became head of trade support and, uncannily, on 11 November last year – 26 years to the day she joined – she became dnata Travel Group’s UK trade partnerships director.
“It’s a massive difference; the previous role was all about the support network – communication, legal documents, etc,” she says. “When I decided to go for the trade partnership role, they were a bit surprised. It’s another term for a sales director, my argument was the two are the same; if you support the trade, you’ll get the sales.
“It’s a big difference now, I have to promote our four brands – Gold Medal, Pure Luxury, Cruise Plus and Incredible Journeys – which is different from supporting them in doing their day job.”
Fletcher describes how she did “a little bit of restructuring”, with three heads of department instead of one, and with key accounts now spread across the team. She describes them as a mix of “old experience and new energy”.
She adds how, after making, changes, her staff expressed the desire to be seen as the trade’s leading team, a feat they achieved this September when Gold Medal won Trade Support Team of the Year at the Travel Industry Awards by TTG.
Homeworker focus
The way travel is sold has changed a lot since Fletcher began her career, with homeworkers now a key focus. Following the collapse of Thomas Cook, the team allocated to the former retail giant were reassigned to this sector.
“We now have two trade partnership managers dedicated solely to homeworkers,” Fletcher explains. “They have to be more adaptive given the longer hours worked by homeworkers, and there’s a lot more social media action.”
Virtual meetings, popular with homeworkers, have also caught on with high street agents, but not everyone is a fan. “A lot of retailers still want to see you in the shop. We try to mix it up, maybe a pizza at 5pm in the shop,” Fletcher says.
So, what’s next? “I’d like to look at how we can grow our air business, then continue growing the specialist brands,” Fletcher tells TTG.
She highlights the newest, touring and adventure brand Incredible Journeys, relaunched in March. “It’s a crowded market, but we can package it with cruise and elements of luxury. We have that USP of our buying power across all elements.”
All this is a long way from Monarch. Bizarrely, Fletcher has her motion sickness to thank for changing her career path so fortuitously. It’s a fact that’s not lost on her.
“Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it?” she muses.
