The newly rebranded Australian Travel Industry Association or ATIA (formerly AFTA) has opened up memberships to individuals. One of multiple initiatives ATIA unveiled today after a two-year-long look at just about everything it does, individual membership to join the association costs $10 a month.
“One of the really key learnings that we’ve had from this two-year review process was individuals wanted to be part of something that wasn’t just their employment part,” ATIA CEO Dean Long told Karryon in an interview.
“When we look back through history, when the association has thrived … it’s because there’s been a really strong travel industry culture and that’s what we’re trying to create with this new individual membership.”
“So that will be opened up to everybody, whether you are a frontline seller, you’re a BDM, you’re someone that’s retired from the industry, or you’re going on maternity leave and want to stay connected.”
Other individuals to benefit from the new ATIA, are mobile and home-based agents, who along with independent travel agents and tour operators/wholesalers will have their own new caucus within the organisation.
Long says the independent contractors or home-based sector is “by far the fastest-growing segment in terms of participants in the entire industry”.
“And it’s that particular cohort of businesses that haven’t actually been able to engage with the association before because they weren’t actually eligible to be ATAS-accredited,” Long remarked.
“So the individuals in those businesses can participate in the new program.”
The facts
As part of the relaunch of the group, ATIA will also put together fact sheets and information about why an ATAS tour operator, travel agent or advisor are important.
“Having that information there allows a client to have further confidence and trust in using an Australian-based travel business,” Long said.
“And that’s what we want – we want more bookings going through Australian-based travel businesses. ATAS is critical to that.
“And then building industry culture and engagement with the individual membership. That’s the secondary part of that and together it really forms a beautiful force out there to create that one family, that one home that we desperately need as an industry.”
A new platform
Underpinning individual and business memberships is a fresh platform within the ATIA website called ‘The Travel Exchange’.
“It’s a message board system … This is about bringing everybody together on one platform, so we can share and collaborate and build the resilience of the industry up and start to build that culture of togetherness, which we’re really excited about because we think that’s going to, one, create a great culture within the industry, which will be underpinned by some events, both in person and virtual – but secondly to that, bring a bit of love and a bit of fun back in the industry.
“And that’s a key learning that we’ve taken from the last two years … is that a lot of people view ATAS and AFTA as being an organisation that was elevating standards, that had a really important role in that space … but we needed to bring some more engagement for those individuals and business owners to get things out of it outside of NTIA or Women in Travel.
“Having that broader remit now for those individuals to join, we can’t wait for them to become involved and active and drive the travel industry forward.”
