It comes as a bit of a surprise that after eight years in the market, Expedia’s corporate arm is still somewhat of a question market to some people in the travel industry.
The company, according to interim Australia Managing Director Jacqui Timmins, is a mystery amongst a few Aussies despite experiencing significant growth since launching in 2002 and being the fifth largest TMC around the world.
In a Q&A with KarryOn, Timmins said the company aims to change Egencia’s position by building its presence around the country and the wider Asia Pacific region, which happens to be the fastest growing region.
“I know some people haven’t heard of us,” she said after a media tour of Expedia’s new Sydney office earlier this year. “And we respond by explaining that if they know Expedia, then we’re the corporate arm.”
Timmins expects to build Egencia with her wealth of industry knowledge, which includes several years at Qantas, as well as through the existing Egencia team, who she sees to be the “best advocates” in sharing the “value that the business can bring to any managed travel program”.
In addition to raising awareness, Timmins said this year the company is also aiming to retain the current “amazing team” while also attracting “top talent” to meet the business’ growing needs.
This should be relatively easy considering those who work at Egencia get to do their job out of the new Expedia office in Martin Place, which is enviably schmick. Running over two-and-a-half floors, it has a large cafe with an actual coffee machine, a generous-sized kitchen, a special walk-up desk for IT support as well as a social area featuring a ping pong table, foosball and table tennis.
“Asia Pacific and Australia is the fastest growing region within Egencia and I want to continue the momentum.”
Jacqui Timmins, Egencia Australia interim Managing Director
“The key area of focus is to grow and retain our team.
“Our new offices in Martin Place (Sydney) with the Expedia Group provide the environment to retain our amazing team and attract top talent from the Australian travel industry to meet the needs of our growing Australian customer base.”
The business will be looking to fill several spaces over the year including new graduate roles, operations positions as well as new sales staff.
“It is the variety of backgrounds and experience that are important, but we love people who are passionate about travel,” she said.
“That’s important to us too because we live it every day.
“Our brand new Sydney office reflects our passion for travel and our rewards and recognitions programs for our team reflects our passion for our staff. This passion is infectious and inevitably is shared with our customers.”