NEWS BE-SPOKE FUNDRAISING:
Delegates at this year’s Abta Travel Convention in Costa Navarino in Greece pedalled into action to raise money for Abta LifeLine. A group of 26 joined the bike ride, sponsored by Avis and Intrepid Travel, helping to raise £17,000 for the charity. Director Trudie Clements said: “It was amazing. We went into the hills to the ancient Messini Way, then to an olive oil farm and after that cycled on to a vineyard to sample their own wine.” She announced details of the charity’s fundraising 2025 G Trek for Good to the Inca city of Choquequirao in Peru. Abta LifeLine is looking for 30 volunteers to take on the challenging five-day hike through
forests, canyons and mountain passes. i Travel Convention, page 10
InteleTravel reveals aim for 60% of recruits to be full-time agents
Andrew McQuarrie InteleTravel Conference, Sorrento
InteleTravel would like a majority of its 28,000 homeworkers in the UK and Ireland to become full-time agents as part of a shift in its approach. The US-headquartered
company has traditionally marketed itself as a chance to enter the travel industry and earn a supplementary income, with the bulk of its agents working part-time. But it has started actively encouraging agents to pursue full-time travel businesses if they have that aim. InteleTravel UK and Ireland
12 months to about 60% to 65%.” Asked how many homeworkers
currently work full-time, she said the business “does not capture that data”. Company president and
STORY TOP
co-founder James Ferrara confirmed the agency had begun taking a fresh approach. He said: “Historically, our messaging has been more about the flexibility of time and the range of participation you could have with us, so we really have played to the part-time approach. But
what we’ve been hearing since the
pandemic is that agents want to rely on this for their full-time career. “Since that’s what we’ve been
managing director Tricia Handley- Hughes said: “I’d love to have 60% of our agents working full-time in travel.” She added: “If you look at our
28,000 agents, it’s realistic to say we will increase the proportion working full-time over the next
travelweekly.co.uk
hearing, we’ve designed programmes to help them get there.” Training programmes and
support have been put in place to help agents secure more bookings and earn more commission. Handley-Hughes said: “It’s
about getting these new agents to their first £1,000 in commission – once they’ve got that, they know they have achieved something. “But then you look at the £2,000
to £5,000 commission range and that’s really the buy-in point – that’s the sweet spot they love. It’s when they’ve got the confidence and they’re getting regular good-sized income coming in for commissions. “And then you’ve got the £10,000
level where people are working on travel and nothing else.” She said she was struck by the
number of lawyers, accountants, teachers and other professionals she had met during the agency’s conference in Sorrento last week. “They love selling travel and
they’re working towards building their commissions so they can step back from their other roles and obtain a better work-life balance,” she said, adding that lawyers and accountants were among the
agents who tended to focus on “higher-commission products”. Ferrara said InteleTravel provides
people with a way to get started in travel and it has developed a “transitional approach”, adding: “It seems to work very well.” Reflecting on the business’s
broader potential, he said: “I would like to see us in the top-20 Atol list – we could be on that list. We could be on it by the end of next year.” InteleTravel, which currently
has a licence to carry just 501 passengers a year, is outside the top-250 largest Atol holders. The current 20th-ranked
Atol holder is Emirates Holidays (UK), which is licensed to carry 109,419 passengers a year. Major Travel, in which
InteleTravel acquired a majority stake earlier this year, has an Atol to carry 10,859 passengers, placing
it 121st on the Atol holder list. i InteleTravel Conference, page 14
17 OCTOBER 2024 5
PICTURE: AG Studios
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
