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In this video you’ll hear from Deborah Kelly, thl's head of sales for the UK and Ireland and TTG’s content writer Charlotte Cullinan.

Video transcript 

Charlotte: Welcome to our In The Spotlight video with Australia and New Zealand motorhome specialist, thl. Debs, could you start by giving us an introduction to thl and its brands? 

Deborah: Yeah, sure, thanks Charlotte, and welcome to the world of motorhome adventures with Australia and New Zealand. thl is a global motorhome provider. We're one of the leading motorhome providers for motorhome rental in the USA, in Canada, in the UK, in Ireland, and of course today's focus, which is Australia and New Zealand. So the brands that we are most popular for in the UK market are Maui, Apollo, and Britz. We also have our value brands, which are Mighty, Cheapa and Hippie for those that are a little bit more budget conscious. We have a wide range of vehicles, anything from a two-berth camper van up to a big six-berth motor home, and two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive options as well for those that might want to go off road.

We've got 10 branches in Australia and three branches in New Zealand. So with our wide range of vehicles, our wide range of brands, there is a vehicle or a model that's going to suit every customer. 

Charlotte: Thank you. And what makes motorhome holidays so special? 

Deborah: Motorhome holidays provide the best of both worlds. You've got that ultimate flexibility of making up the holiday as you go along, but you also have those home comforts on the road with you, with our lovely motorhomes. Australians and New Zealanders love to camp, and I think that's what makes our products such a success in our countries. There are campsites absolutely everywhere.

What I love the most is that you are travelling like a local, going to the supermarkets or to the wineries, the breweries. You're stocking the fridge up with the local produce, putting it into the fridge and then you are eating and drinking it that night. A motorhome holiday feels like a really authentic way of traveling through our countries.

Charlotte: That sounds amazing. And tell us how does an agent go about planning a holiday like this for their clients? 

Deborah: Yeah, it is really easy. Now to begin with it can feel a little bit daunting offering a motorhome holiday. There's lots of bells and whistles going on. Once you get used to selling a motor home, it can become a really quick and easy sell.

You've got your start point, you've got your end point, and then the planning in between is up to the customers and what they are interested in. Now, this is where we have you and your customers covered. So we have a fantastic app called the thl Road Trip App, and I highly recommend that everybody downloads it from the Apple or the Google Play Store. You don't have to be a customer, anybody can use it and it's free to download. Now, the app has a fantastic journey planning tool in there, and so the customers can filter by attractions, activities, supermarkets, petrol stations, so they can have a look at what they can be doing and start doing their journey planning from home.

Now, I recommend that the good place to start is filtering by campsites. Now, doing this alone will give your customers the confidence that there are a lot of places to stay as they're travelling. Now the app will also provide them with their show through videos. So they can watch a show through video of their vehicle at home, start to get them excited about their vehicle that they're going to be travelling in, and start getting their head around things like gas stoves or chemical toilets.

And then while they're on the road, it also provides them with their on-road support. So we've got these great how-to videos. So on the first night of their camping, they're thinking, oh, I've totally forgotten how to make-up that bed. They can just quickly pop onto the app, watch a one-minute video on making-up the bed.

Charlotte: Brilliant. So you've definitely got all of the planning covered. And how do agents go about booking a motor home with thl? 

Deborah: So we've got you covered there too. We work with all the major UK wholesalers and they are absolute experts in offering motor home holidays. They have access to our B2B system, which gives them live access to our fleet, which means that they can turn around your quotes really quickly.

Now, they are great at giving you that support to make sure that you're offering the right brand, the right layout for your customers, and any of the add-ons that your customers will need. We highly recommend that everyone takes the value pack. The value pack is an add-on to your booking. It will then include a nil excess on the vehicle, which is really big, as well as offering the additional drivers, their picnic table and chairs for outside and all those additional extras.

So adding this on means that they'll have little or no local payments, so they've completely covered in the first booking. 

Charlotte: Brilliant, thank you so much, Debs, for sharing all of those top selling tips and thank you for watching our In The Spotlight video with thl.