The US homeworking firm, which launched in the UK in 2017 and gained Abta membership in March 2019, recently surpassed 30,000 active UK agents, with more than 4,000 joining the UK operation since the group’s conference in Sorrento last year.
Meanwhile, InteleTravel can now count more than 1,000 Irish agents on its books less than two years after it expanded into the Republic of Ireland. Chief executive James Ferrara called the Irish agent numbers “big news”.
“That [1,000] is far beyond any projection that we had," he told TTG. "The same has happened here in the UK, we’ve had to toss the projections a bit.”
Ferrara said “dozens” of background checks are carried out on every Intele agent, covering their finances, data usage and social media accounts, before they join. “If those checks return a flag, then it goes to a traditional background check, and then we do a full-on deep dive,” said Ferrara.
The initial checks, he added, are completed “in an instant” and return an overall score which must pass the agency’s benchmark. Ferrara said 13% of applicants get flagged on a monthly basis, on average, with around 2% eventually being declined altogether.
"Sometimes the flags have very reasonable explanations,” he explained. “If your IP address on the device you’re using on our website is not near enough to where you live, that will lower the score a bit.”
Ferrara added that when it came to discussing any flags with applicants, there was typically a "reasonable explanation".
New InteleTravel president Tara Minson insisted the vetting system, which has been in place since InteleTravel launched in 1991, had been improved over time. “We don’t just let anyone in through the door,” she insisted.
“Agents are not even aware it’s happening [vetting]. They’ll just be told their enrolment did not go through, it got flagged and it’s going to be reviewed further.”
Minson also revealed potential InteleTravel agents have their email accounts checked. “If you’d created an email address the day before you want to join InteleTravel, that would raise a flag,” she explained.
’It’s easy to be critical of the numbers’
Meanwhile, InteleTravel’s UK managing director, Tricia Handley-Hughes, stressed the agency doesn’t obsess over agent numbers. She reveals the agency’s peaks revenue is 88% up year-on-year since 26 December 2024.
"We’re really pleased with our peaks performance so far – how many agencies can say they’re 88% up?," she said. "It’s very easy to be critical of the numbers – if you divide the revenue by the number of agents it doesn’t sound much.
"But you’ve got people who dip in and out, you’ve got some people who do their training, some people are very happy just starting out. InteleTravel is about supporting agents, helping them essentially earn more commissions – that is why they’re with us.
"They want to be travel agents, they love the industry and they want to earn. We want them to earn as much as they can and enjoy having a travel career."
