TravelManagers has begun its 14th annual National Conference, held this year over three days from 31 August to 2 September at Te Pae Convention Centre in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa, New Zealand, with 370 delegates in attendance.
Lifting the curtain on a conference that was originally scheduled to happen in 2019, Loren Heaphy, General Manager of Christchurch, nailed the collective sentiment after referencing the many hurdles that had been overcome to make the event finally happen in the city, saying, “Welcome and also, it’s about bloody time!”
Marking the group’s first offshore event in four years, the initial decision to stage the event in Ōtautahi Christchurch had always been intended to be a respectful nod to TravelManagers’ parent enterprise, House of Travel, which was founded in the city in 1987 by Chris Paulsen, who is also attending the event.
The theme of this year’s event is Future Fit, which underlines the importance of resilience, innovation, and adaptation in navigating an environment characterised by an unparalleled and unpredictable rate of change.
With change comes opportunity, and TravelManagers, like many groups in FY22/23, has seen bumper financial success with consecutive record sales months in FY22/23 that have continued into the new financial year.
In his presentation, House of Travel Australia CEO Joe Araullo remarked that after TravelManagers achieved a record sales year in 2019, the team wondered, “How are we ever going to top that, especially after the pandemic?”
The answer, Araullo says, has been to openly embrace new possibilities, saying, “Given that margins tend to be squeezed, especially with airline commission reductions, the fact that we’ve embraced charging fees and also working smarter using those utilising net and private fares and selling packages means we’ve been able actually to increase those margins.”
As such, for the first six months of the 22/23 financial year, the group was up 29 per cent on 2019 sales numbers, with Personal Travel Manager’s average commission up a whopping 31 per cent.
The record results continued month on month for the remainder of FY22/23 and into the new financial year, with Araullo congratulating the group: “The reality is that if we exceed September and October, it would mean that we will have had 12 months of record months.”
As to what comes next, Araullo said, “We survived a pandemic, and we are now thriving through the bounce back. We need to prepare for the future to ensure that business continues to be successful.”
Improving productivity and finding the best technology available, access to automated resources for outsourcing opportunities, investing in customer research and developing relationships with suppliers were all earmarked as further initiatives by Araullo.
Equally, sustainability has been adopted as a core focus for the group, with Araullo noting New Zealand is “Years ahead of us when it comes to sustainability. So we actually need to take their guidance and leadership to help us through that.”
In another first, the Conference will achieve carbon-neutral status through a partnership with The Christchurch Foundation.
As part of the partnership, carbon credits offsetting delegates travel to and from the event were used to plant 1,116 trees, some of which were planted by the TravelManagers team and other suppliers pre-conference at a special event in Christchurch hosted by Intrepid Travel.
Announcing an extension to the group’s pioneering network Mental Wellbeing Assistance Program, which includes access to a team of psychologists across the country to help their network and staff, Araullo said, “Chris (Paulsen) always says to me, Joe, what keeps you up at night? And I say it’s our people. We know things are good. We know we’re doing well. But we’ve got to look after our people.”
Emphasising the importance of being Future Fit, TravelManagers Executive General Manager, Michael Gazal said in his presentation: “To be future fit means embracing innovation, efficiency and balance in all aspects of our personal and professional lives.
“We understand that time is the most valuable resource, and by outsourcing laborious administration tasks, you can add so much more value to your clients, feel less overwhelmed, and potentially avoid costly errors.”
However, Gazal reminded the group that wellbeing was still the core value to be mindful of, saying, “Being future fit is really about finding equilibrium. Ensuring your physical and mental wellbeing are in optimal peak condition for optimum performance.
“Our vision to be the best partner in travel remains at the forefront of everything we do,” he said.
Travel Manager’s favourite futurist, Gihan Perera, shared valuable tools for PTMs to use in his engaging keynote presentation on ‘The New Rules for High Performance – Channelling Chaos for Staying Ahead’.
The Future Fit concept will continue to be explored across the three-day event, including a range of workshops and supplier networking sessions and functions, ending with a closing address by 2023 Australian of the Year and body-positive activist Taryn Brumfitt, whose belief that resilience, tenacity and polite persistence trump luck every time, which is sure to provide a solid conclusion to the Conference.
More to come.
