50 TRAVEL TRADE UPDATES
MEET NORTHERN IRELAND’S FIRST INTELETRAVEL AMBASSADOR
Nov/Dec 2022 Travel News
“Desire To Travel Stronger Than Ever”– Says Tourism Ireland Chief Executive
B2B event in the global travel and tourism calendar. It presents a unique opportunity for the travel industry to meet, network, negotiate and conduct business for 2023. As we emerge from the pandemic, the
NI Travel News’ Sarah Pickering attended Inteletravel’s annual conference which was held in Belfast for the first time.
She caught up with Caroline Dillon, Northern Ireland’s first Inteletravel ambassador... What made you consider Inteletravel as a career?
“I love travel. Like a lot of people, I am a little bit obsessed with searching for deals online for myself and my family. At the start, it really wasn’t any different for me as I was online searching for my own holidays anyway.[In] 2018, I did see an advert for an opportunity for this home working kind of travel, and I’m going to be really honest, I was a bit sceptical about it. I didn’t understand what it was about, so I kind of just got a bit of information and didn’t do anything about it at this stage. 2020 came, I was off work for 4 months at home with my children, and I saw another opportunity and I decided ‘you know what? Im going to find out a little bit more about that’. I did that and I got speaking to another agent and really liked the sound of it. I thought, ‘d you know what? For the fee of £130…its obviously nothing to get into your own business and it wasnt going to break me, and if it all went terribly wrong’, but it hasn’t, it wasn’t a big investment so I wasn’t concerned about that. Previously, I have had my own business and I had ran a retail shop, which I had put in a significant amount of money in to so I was nervous. I had researched other home-working companies which were looking for a £10,000 input and I had to go away to England to train with them and that didn’t suit me with family and I didn’t want to put in a big investment either so Inteletravel suited me perfectly. I liked that it was no targets. I liked that I could work from home. I liked that I could totally do it around my own commitments. I did my initial training and that’s the first thing you have to do, your regulatory training, so you are not able to book any travel for anybody until you do that so that’s learning all your package holidays, travel regulations, learning about ABTA; Now its learning about ATOL because that is included now that we are ATOL approved. [I] did that. I actually did it on holidays, I was very lucky to get away on holidays in 2020, so took all my training manual on holidays and worked through my training whilst I was away. We did have to do a test as well, so I did the test, and then from there I really started to do a bit more of our basic training. I hit the ground running when I came back from holidays in July 2020, launched the business and Facebook was how I launched it. I just asked family and friends etc. to share it. Initially I had about 50 likes and followers- I am delighted to say today I have 5,500 so its really growing… I built my business during the pandemic on staycations. By that stage we all thought by Christmas 2020 that everything was going to be lovely and we were itching to be back got travel. That didn’t happen. All the hotels closed down that Christmas. I had loads of bookings and then they were all cancelled. But it was fine. A lot of them were actually very good and re-book with me for May ’21 onwards [which] was when the hotels did reopen. So there was a period of time
that I really just felt like my time, learning the industry, l e a r n i n g destinations, l e a r n i n g the product marketing myself for when I knew the time was going to be
right and thankfully its all been good so I’ve been very fortunate to of staycations.” Webinars, are they available all the time? “I try, as much as I can, to watch them live because I like watching like that, but that might not suit
everyone.They are all saved in our back office; so we have a lovely tab saved in our back office which you can go in and you can search by supplier, you can search by time of holiday, adult only, honeymoon, family, and all the webinars are all in there… We also have specialised webinars. How did inteletravel reach out to you? It was just an advert I seen on social media
about homework travel and I just thought ‘ no that’s something could really fit in with my life’. I was really interested in travel, not quite the position to give up the job, the day job, so I needed something to get me into travel and that would be my bridge to get there.” What does you role as ambassador entail?
“My role as an ambassador will be with a new
agent; I will be able to help them train up to really be a successful agent. So I will be taking them through the steps at the start like, how to get started, what’s the best way to maybe set up your website, what’s the best way to use social media, how are you going to grow your audience. How are you going to grow your product knowledge? And kind of guide them in a different way and show them how to do that.” Advice for someone not confident in social media looking to start with inteletravel?
“I would get that a lot where people would say ‘gosh I don’t really have a big network’ but it would surprise you… I advise them to set up a Facebook or instagram and just get out there even if it is just to a small network they have, their friends and family, and just be asking them to support their business, to share their business, and they will find that if they’re constantly putting up good, quality content from our suppliers, their business will grow. Our suppliers are very good in that they will have their own Facebook pages, so we are able to go and get really good quality content from them. You might not have time everyday to come up with the most fabulous content in the world yourself so hey will support us ,they will give us marketing tools to use and that we are compliant as well.I did do some social media training myself and I would probably advise people, if that’s not an area they are comfortable with, {[hat] there are lots of avenues out there. Intele would do a bit of work with the mon that as well.”
tourism industry now faces other challenges – including labour shortfalls, currency fluctuations and the rising cost of doing business. Nonetheless, the latest round of Tourism Ireland research gives cause for optimism for overseas tourism next year. Te research, carried out in 10 important tourism markets, shows that the desire to travel is stronger than ever. It also shows that seven out of ten people who want to travel in 2023 are still in the planning stages, meaning there is still a good opportunity to influence their choice of destination. Niall Gibbons, Chief Executive of
continues, with 2022 expected to finish at around 75% of 2019 business – according to Tourism Ireland. International travel has rebounded more
THE recovery in overseas tourism
quickly than anticipated this year – with factors like pent-up demand for travel, deferred bookings and accumulated savings leading to a surge in travel to the island of Ireland. Air and sea capacity has also been returning at a faster rate than expected, with air capacity for this winter at 102% of air capacity in winter 2019. As Tourism Ireland now prepares for 2023,
the organisation is mounting its biggest-ever presence at World Travel Market (WTM) in London this week. Tourism Ireland is hosting over 100 tourism companies from Ireland – including around 35 companies from Northern Ireland – on its stand. WTM marks the beginning of the promotional drive overseas for 2023 and is the largest
“We’re Here to Support Our Agents More Than Ever” - G Adventures’ Stu Darnley
NI Travel News’ Erin English was in attendance at the ABTA Travel Convention which took place in Morocco the 10-12th of October where she caught up with G Adventures. Stu Darnley, G Adventures National Sales Manager later issued this message to the travel agents of Northern Ireland.
Tourism Ireland, said: “In 2022, our priority was to restart overseas tourism to the island of Ireland, so it’s encouraging to see that the year is expected to finish at around 75% of 2019 business. “As we look now to 2023, our research
confirms that the desire to travel is stronger than ever – so our presence at World Travel Market is more important than ever. Te record number of tourism companies from Northern Ireland, and the island of Ireland, attending this year is extremely welcome and essential in the highly competitive international marketplace. As we enter the REBUILD phase of our strategy for overseas tourism, our aim is to stand out from the crowd and to capture the attention of the global media and travel professionals at WTM.” Tourism Ireland has been undertaking its
most extensive programme of promotions ever
tourism, following an extremely challenging two years for the tourism industry. Te organisation has a three-phase plan to RESTART, REBUILD and ultimately REDESIGN demand.
this year to RESTART overseas
TruTravels Shake Up Agent Training with In- Destination Videos
specialist, TruTravels is shaking up agent training with the launch of their new, innovative ‘Youtube-style’ videos, filmed in amazing destinations around the world. Presented by TruTravels’ Business
"As travel has started to rebound following the pandemic, we are seeing more and more new agents exploring the opportunity posed by the adventure and touring sector. There's no denying that more travellers are seeking meaningful and immersive experiences that go beyond the usual beach holiday as they strive to reclaim some of the time lost over the past two and a half years. We're working hard to educate agents that adventure is one of the most inclusive sectors and goes far beyond the stereotypical active breaks. Whether it's enjoying a relaxing winter sun break on the deck of a catamaran in Sri Lanka, where travellers will meet with local communities and explore pristine beaches, or settling down with a local family in Italy on a traditional lemon farm for a week of delicious food and learning about a local way of life, an adventure is personal to each and every one of us.
From G Adventures' side, we're here to support our agents more than ever, whether that's through our contact centre who are on call to help answer agent's questions, or our fantastic Global Purpose Specialist team including Jen Watson, who is spending more face to face time with our agents across Northern Ireland in the coming months".
Te youth-travel and social adventure
Development Manager, James Lavin, in sunny Santorini, the first of the videos has launched this week, acting as an ever-green resource for agents to understand all things Tru in a fun, engaging way. “We’ve spoken to so many agents over the
past few months who are simply bored of the traditional webinar-training model. Many of
energy brought by the Tru team, but simply don’t have the time to do them on a regular basis. So, we thought why not turn training on its head and offer them something fresh, new, and very ‘Tru’?” Lavin explains. “Te new video is designed to teach
them love in-person meetings and the
agents everything they need to know about TruTravels, from our origins, our trips and what we stand for, but in a more entertaining way. We love the content created when we work with YouTubers and TikTokkers, and wanted to draw inspiration from this to offer really engaging, experiential and easy- to-watch video that brings all the good Tru vibes to them, right at their desks.” Te first in a multi-video series, which can
be easily edited and added to as times and the travel landscape changes, the TruTravels Agent Training Guide is designed to be enjoyed ‘on demand’ at the agents pace and to act as a handy resource that can be referred back to.
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