Flight Centre is going after the online travel market with a virtual travel agent, which has been described as the ‘quirkiest brand’ in the group.
Launching next month, the website will be called Aunt Betty and will see a 46-year-old, well travelled character cater to the online market.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Aunt Betty website was designed to help the Flight Centre Travel Group take back some of its market share, which has been partially lost to sites like Webjet and Expedia over the past few years.
So as to not directly compete with the group’s retail agents, the virtual agent will concentrate on selling air-led packages to destinations around Australia as well as Thailand and Bali.
“We see it as an air-led package brand but all about recommending and helping customers.”
Joell Ogilvie, Flight Centre Executive General Manager
“We call it a virtual travel agent. It is the quirkiest brand that we have in the family.”
Ms Ogilvie continued, saying the company had considered more conventional brands before agreeing on Aunt Betty because she is “going to be different”.
“We also thought it needed to be a person, not another ‘flight’ name. It is a person who cares about her customer,” she added.
To help launch Aunt Betty, Flight Centre has published her entire back-story to the website.
According to the site, she got the travel itch “bad” at an early age. In fact she was so obsessed with travel as a kid that her Grandpa would say you’d be more likely to see her with her “nose in an atlas than a picture book”.
She was always top of her classes and was offered a job at a museum, which she turned down to see the world instead.
Her first international trip was to China, before boarding a trans-Siberian train to meet Mongolian woman.
Click here to read her full story.
