itravel has welcomed two new travel agents to its growing family, with the group currently “inundated” with enquiries.
Benjamin Lord from Expert Class Travel in Victoria (formerly Traralgon Holiday Centre) and Emma Longford from Longford Travel in NSW (formerly italk Travel Nowra) have joined itravel’s LINK Affiliates programme, a low-cost, unbranded partner programme that allows agents to utilise preferred commissions and earn rewards from their sales through override payments.
Benjamin Lord said itravel gave Expert Class Travel “the freedom to choose which suppliers we wanted to use”.
“We wanted a group where if we had any issues we could just pick up the phone to get it solved instead of having to email or go through a web-based chat system,” he said.
Emma Longford said that joining the itravel network was “an exciting move for our company”.
“It is joining a family with many like-minded agency owners to keep the variety available for the consumer,” she added.
“I believe it’s important to stay independent so we can supply our clients with one-of-a-kind service and product.
“This allows for a point of difference in the marketplace and avoid becoming just a number on the board.”
Meanwhile, itravel says it has been receiving a “huge” number of enquiries about its link affiliate business model on account of “recent ownership changes in the industry”.
“It’s clear to us that many independent self-branded agents want to stay that way and be a part of a smaller community-focused group,” said itravel CEO Steve Labroski, adding his team has been fielding calls from all over Australia.
“We thrilled to have Emma and Ben and his team onboard.”
Earlier this month, itravel revealed two other new members of its Link Affiliates group, Jetsetter Travel and Reguson Travel & Cruise.
For more information on LINK Affiliate by itravel, click here.
In May, the group also launched LUXE by itravel as a Virtuoso Travel member with an initial group of eight luxury travel advisors.
The group appointed Cherie Bowman as Head of Product and Head of the new luxury division.
Earlier this year, itravel’s Megan Catterall spoke to Karryon about how she became Mobile/Home-Based Agent of the Year.
