Hartmann Advisory is here, bringing deep industry know-how to help travel companies and insurers grow, improve partnerships and operate more effectively. Founder and Managing Director Matt Endycott explains why the specialist advisory firm is your strategic asset for commercial success, minus unnecessary complexity.
Simply put, Hartmann Advisory helps propel travel businesses forward, improve partnerships and navigate change with practical commercial advice.
The difference lies in its experience and expertise from inside the travel industry, not outside, with deep sector knowledge gleaned across more than two decades.
Now, Hartmann Advisory launches in Australia and New Zealand with Founder and Managing Director Matt Endycott appointed to lead a major Helloworld Travel Group initiative in both markets.
What does Hartmann Advisory do?
Hartmann Advisory works like an experienced strategic advisor for travel brands.
They’re your go-to if you want to grow sales and enter new markets and build stronger partnerships with airlines, insurers, advisors and distributors.
Internally, Hartmann Advisory can assist travel leaders in improving how your business runs and helping teams manage change, restructuring and expansion.
Based in Perth and Sydney, Hartmann Advisory works across growth, distribution, partnerships and execution.
Endycott established the firm to address the specialised advisory gap and fragmented ownership of strategy, partnerships, distribution, operations, product and execution within the travel and travel insurance sectors.
“Travel and travel insurance are highly specialised, complex sectors where decisions about distribution, partner structures, customer experience, assistance capabilities, and regulatory compliance can have far-reaching effects across entire operating models,” he says.
“While larger consulting firms bring generalist expertise, there is often a disconnect between their strategic recommendations and the practical realities of commercial execution in this industry.
“Hartmann Advisory was purpose-built to address this need, providing commercially grounded, execution-oriented advice informed by direct, hands-on experience in travel and travel insurance.”
Who’s the expertise behind Hartmann Advisory?
Hartmann Advisory may be new, but Endycott is a well-known name in the travel sector, bringing more than 20 years’ experience and expertise from Australian and New Zealand travel brands and insurers.
He works with leadership teams on the commercial side, helping you make informed and strategic decisions about growth, partnerships and operations.
Endycott’s senior leadership experience spans luxury and tailor-made travel, airlines, cruise, group touring and travel insurance globally with multi-market initiatives across Australia, New Zealand, North America, the UK and Europe.
Named after his mother’s maiden name and inspired by her travel business, Hartmann Advisory embodies what Endycott believes travel is: commercial, operational, emotional and deeply human.
“Long before I worked in travel, I grew up listening to stories of distant places as lived experience. Travel wasn’t an escape. It was perspective and one I’ve spent my entire lifetime around,” he says.
“After living in Japan, at age 20, I joined the same business my mother helped build in the 1980s – Helen Wong’s Tours, one of the first to open up China to Western travellers and my first industry role.
“Over the next two decades, I built a career inside the ANZ travel industry across strategy, partnerships, transformation and decision-making at scale.
“Hartmann Advisory isn’t named after me, it’s named for where my journey began and is a small tribute to the person who first showed me how big the world could be,” he says.
As part of its commitment to championing the sector’s growth trajectory and future, Hartmann Advisory has partnered with Travel Industry Mentor Experience (TIME).
“This partnership is aligned to our belief that the future of travel will be built by people who are generous with their knowledge, serious about development and committed to uplifting the industry around them,” Endycott says.
“Travel has always been an industry of relationships, experience and shared learning, and we’re proud to join a respected group of industry partners to support the TIME program.”
Why do I need Hartmann Advisory?
If you want senior-led advice shaped from within the Australian and New Zealand travel industry, instead of an outside perspective, Endycott has the know-how and business acumen to deliver measurable outcomes.
As Endycott explains: “What sets Hartmann Advisory apart is simple. Our advice comes from inside the travel industry, not from outside it.”
For travel brands, Hartmann Advisory helps simplify tough commercial challenges, from changing sales channels and shifting customer behaviour to growing competition by helping businesses sharpen their strategy, structure and execution for better results.
For travel insurers, challenges include fewer customers adding insurance to bookings, commercial demands from distribution partners, more complex sales channels and stronger links between product, operations, digital and commercial teams.
Hartmann Advisory is now open to engage with travel brands and insurers facing commercially significant challenges across channel performance, partner models, market expansion or execution complexity.
Real advice, real results
Before launching Hartmann Advisory, Endycott already had a proven track record of helping travel companies launch into the Australian and New Zealand markets and improve trade relationships with advisors or distribution partners.
Within travel businesses, he has redesigned internal processes to promote efficiency, created clearer growth strategies and identified new revenue opportunities.
Endycott’s success stories include a 97 per cent novation rate on a post-acquisition portfolio merger, the development and implementation of the Qantas Travel Insurance program for a major insurer across integrated and white-label digital channels and repositioning a specialist travel brand that was awarded Best Product and Best Wholesaler for three straight years.
Hartmann Advisory’s first major mandate is with Helloworld Travel Group, and follows Endycott’s recent leadership of the Flight Centre Travel Group global travel insurance rollout in ANZ, Canada, the US and the UK, demonstrating his experience of navigating the complexities of diverse markets, partnerships, governance and distribution.
Both case studies are examples of the high-impact, multidimensional work that the specialist travel advisory firm delivers, straddling partnership development, distribution strategy, business transformation and operational execution.
As well as leading the Helloworld Travel Group and Flight Centre Travel Group initiatives, Endycott has worked with major travel brands across air, touring and cruise, such as Virgin Australia, HCF, The Travel Corporation, Allianz, Europ Assistance (now Redion), Expedia and Qantas as clients, just to name a few.
His impressive portfolio demonstrates Hartmann Advisory’s breadth of industry experience and partnerships – not only within travel insurance.
Start a conversation with Hartmann Advisory today. Visit hartmannadvisory.com.au or email hello@hartmannadvisory.com.au
This article is brought to you by Hartmann Advisory.
