NEWS — CONFERENCE REPORT
Joanna Wild, Thomas Cook
sales managing director, speaks at the conference
The Co-operative Personal Travel Advisors and Freedom Travel Group held their conference at Disneyland Paris this week. LEE HAYHURST reports
Cook pledges to boost support for members
Homeworkers for Co-operative Personal Travel Advisors (CoPTA) and members of Freedom Travel Group attending their Disneyland Paris conference this week heard how Thomas Cook Group is poised to give them more support from head office.
The first phase of “We have been looking at
the two businesses and where we need to add personnel”
new investment in the independent travel agency division, promised by Cook, will see eight new employees based at its head office in Altrincham, Manchester, by January. These roles will cover member recruitment, training, marketing and IT support, underlining Cook’s commitment, said Kelly Cookes, who heads both businesses. “For the past six months we
have been looking at the two businesses and where we need to add personnel to increase support for members,” Cookes said. “We announced at the
conference the culmination of that work and the investment going into the businesses.” Interest from agencies and
homeworkers in joining Freedom and CoPTA is high, claimed Cookes,
but she said the business was not looking for significant expansion. “We do not want to become huge. Our focus will be on existing members, but we want to make the most of the enquiries.” Freedom has
140 branches and CoPTA has 130 homeworkers. Cookes said the consortium lost seven members in the last
financial year to September 30 – compared with 10 the year before – but that the loses were more than offset by 14 new members.
New supplier clears payments
Freedom and CoPTA claim to have resolved problems with tour operator payments, having switched to a supplier that dealt with reconciling bookings. Members had previously complained that too many bookings were being queried, so better auto-matching was needed between supplier statements and agent invoices. Kelly Cookes, head of The
Freedom Travel Group and CoPTA, said a backlog of queries had now been cleared and, with the support of the head office, the system was working smoothly with the new supplier. Freedom and CoPTA outsources some back-office
New Freedom/CoPTA head-office roles
l Recruitment manager This new role will be responsible for new recruits, allowing business development managers (BDMs) to concentrate on giving support to existing members.
l Training manager Will oversee training for new members and run refresher courses for existing members. Freedom members who take on
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travelweekly.co.uk — 4 December 2014
new staff can call on this resource. The training manager will work with suppliers to arrange events.
l Compliance manager and compliance assistant Will offer advice on Abta and Atol regulations and their marketing activities.
l IT support team There will be three new IT
support officers. They will work with current systems providers, such as the Vertical Group, which operates the Tarsc back-office system, and look to bring in new technology and upgrades.
l Marketing manager Will offer expert marketing advice and work with suppliers to generate marketing initiatives for members.
functions to India and tour operator payments was one of these, Cookes confirmed. She also said improving supplier relationships would be one area of focus for the future. The group has commercial deals with 350 suppliers and adds new ones all the time. Cookes said head office would
not steer members toward certain suppliers and that it wanted to offer as broad a range as possible. “It’s not our job to tell our members who they can sell or to limit the amount of suppliers. What’s important is being independent and choosing which suppliers to work with.”
CONFERENCE REPORT
Cook invests in CoPTA and Freedom
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