Link Travel Group’s debut full-scale conference, Link Live 2025 at W Brisbane, landed with serious momentum: 180 delegates (a complete sell-out) and a network that has already surpassed $1 billion in TTV, just three years after its launch. Karryon caught up with the Group’s board members, Penny Spencer, Dani Galloway, Anthony Goldman and GM Scott Darlow at the event to explore what’s driving one of Australia’s most dynamic agency networks.
For Link Travel Group, conferences like this aren’t a nice-to-have. They are a strategic lever. Anthony Goldman (Link Co-founder and Joint Managing Director of Goldman Travel Group) says events like Link Live are core to the ecosystem they’re building.
“Part of our mission is around collaboration together, and our industry is about relationships. So these events are necessary. We want to get our members together, talking and sharing, because ultimately that collaboration is going to make them better businesses.”
This year’s first-ever Link Live builds on a string of strong wins across the network, including a curated group of 32 premium leisure and corporate agencies, new additions such as Planet Blue Travel and Main Beach Travel, consistent growth across every member, and a three-year operating strategy that has delivered results beyond expectations.
The Link Standard: quality, consistency and discipline
If Link’s early years can be defined by anything, it’s discipline. Clear values, clear standards, and transparent decision-making have underpinned every step, including knocking back over 60 applications to join the group since its inception three years ago. Penny Spencer (Link Co-founder and Managing Director of Spencer Group of Companies) says the success is no accident.
“We set ourselves up for success, definitely. But you just never know. We’re very much about the Link standard in terms of who we let into the group. And I think over the three years, we’ve really chosen the right people, and that’s how we’ve been successful.”
Dani Galloway (Link Co-founder and Global MD of FCTG’s Premium and Independent Divisions) highlights the insights that informed the launch. “We had a strategy behind the initial setup of the business, and we’ve executed and stayed on point. We’ve had a three-year ‘plan to win’ strategy, and we haven’t deviated from that.”
Underneath the invitation-only approach is a specific mix of leaders and thinkers the board has intentionally targeted. “We targeted members not just with the Link standard — quality over quantity — but we had three targets we were going after: emerging leaders, experienced leaders and innovators. It’s not just about the experience that’s here in the industry, but also about the future,” says Galloway.
The strategy is working. “We’re growing at 14% across the board. Every single member is growing. The industry standard is 3–5%.”
Togetherness as a business strategy
Inside the conference, one word runs beneath everything: together. At lunch, Spencer said you could feel the culture in motion. “The members are excited, you feel it. They’re all like-minded and genuinely like each other and enjoy each other’s company. They’re just excited to see each other.”
Galloway puts it even more simply: “We always say it’s influence over control. It’s collaboration over competition. And that is Link.”
Link General Manager Scott Darlow says accessibility from the top is one of Link’s unexpected strengths. “You would never meet a more accessible board. Any one of our members can pick up the phone and call Dani, Penny and Anthony, and they do. They bounce ideas. That blows people away.”
According to Goldman, that openness is strengthened by the network’s entrepreneurial DNA. “All our members are entrepreneurial, Australian-owned businesses. I’m excited about the emerging innovations; they bring new ideas and different ways of doing things, and then we learn, because we’ve been around for 30 plus years.”
Scaling margin, supply and technology
As Link grows, its focus is shifting toward strengthening margins for members, leveraging its broad supply base, and utilising technology to empower advisors. Goldman says Link’s unique supply structure, combining the Flight Centre Travel Group platform with the long-standing supply networks of Goldman Travel and Spencer Travel, is shaping behaviour inside member agencies.
“This group has the largest range of supply in the industry. What it does is it elevates our members. If they’re a pure corporate, it gives them the confidence to go, ‘What else can I sell?’ I’ve heard stories where an agency is suddenly selling more cruises to their corporates, something they would never have thought about.”
Galloway says that supply depth must translate into sustainability and profitability. “We’re going to make sure it allows us to grow our businesses in terms of revenue and margin into the future, making sure that it’s not commoditised, that it’s evolving. Revenue margin is a really important focus for the industry, not relying on a historic lens, but thinking about new ways to make revenue.”
On technology and AI, Goldman says the goal is augmentation, not replacement. “Right now AI is a journey each of our members is taking at different levels. Ultimately the mission is how to embrace AI to make efficiencies in business. But ultimately, it is about the travel advisor and working with your clients.”
The next generation and why wellbeing matters
If Link’s first three years were about building the foundation, the next chapter is clearly about people: who is coming up next and how long they can stay in the game.
Darlow highlights Link’s involvement with the Travel Industry Mentor Experience (TIME) and its investment in young leaders. “We want to foster that next generation ourselves,” he says, acknowledging that last year’s TIME scholarship winner, Jack Want from Eden Corporate Travel, is at Link Live experiencing the conference first-hand with his mentor, Dave Goldman, joint Managing Director of Goldman Travel Group.
When the weekend wraps, Link will close its program with something rarely prioritised in travel: self-empowered wellbeing. “We’re closing the conference with a session on wellbeing, giving everyone the tools to look after themselves, because we think that’s obviously important as well,” Darlow says. “We’re one of the first groups doing that. Everyone goes home in the right frame of mind.”
For Goldman, whose family has been in the travel industry for generations, the message hits close to home. “The challenge in travel is that your work is also your passion. My father always said that travel was his business, his life, and his hobby. So where do you turn off?”
Galloway hopes Link Live 2025 sends people home with both inspiration and a sense of grounding.
“The main thing is aligning with the vision of reimagining together. We want to continue to reimagine the future, and that’s what we’re about. We’ve created such an incredible, bonded group, and together is our power.”
Read the full Link Live 2025 wrap story here.
Link Live will be held every two years in Australia, with an offshore Link Retreat planned for 2026 (destination to be announced).
Link Travel Group is a joint venture between Flight Centre Travel Group, Goldman Travel Corporation and the Spencer Group of Companies.
