Dnata’s B2B director of sales and marketing, Gordon McCreadie, said January would also be “the biggest marketing and promotional month in the brand’s history”, with 20 different prizes on offer, from holidays and Apple Watches to spa days and personalised Nike trainers.
“There’s going to be more spend, wider activity, more incentives,” McCreadie told TTG.
Speaking at Travel 2’s annual agent awards at the Fairmont St Andrews last week, he added: “Agents have bought into our business because of these things; we’re going to do it bigger, better and louder.”
Other initiatives will include an “every day’s a pay day” incentive and weighted incentives for key partners and products.
Travel 2 sold around 26% of its 2015 business in January and February this year, and McCreadie said the operator hoped 2016 would follow that trend, with 25 additional sales consultants already trained and ready to take phone calls.
He admitted that the market was currently “a little bit quiet” as a result of global events, but said he expected the British public to still travel in equal or greater numbers next year.
Account managers representing both Travel 2 and Gold Medal will also be visiting more than 2,500 agents across January and February, McCreadie confirmed.
“We want agents to realise that nothing’s changed [since Dubai-based dnata bought both competing brands],” he said.
“You may have a different account manager coming to see you, but if you sell Gold Medal, continue to do so, and if you sell Travel 2, continue to do so.”
While Gold Medal is recognising top performers with a lunch in Manchester this week, McCreadie confirmed that in 2016 the two brands would share Travel 2’s awards event and golf day.
“We might even look at moving the awards event to different locations around the country if that’s what our customers want,” he suggested.
Travel 2’s commitment to agent partners will see it expand the number of agents taken on fam trips from 300 this year to 400 in 2016.
Changing the structure of fams, so that agents spend more time experiencing the product as their clients would, has also paid off.
“We’ve also been doing a lot of post-fam follow up, such as co-hosting consumer events, to extend the life of the fam,” McCreadie added.
