Travel Leaders Network announces Air Canada to beta test online booking tool

SNAP, the online booking tool hosted by Travel Leaders Network, will start beta testing air travel with lead airline Air Canada starting on March 17th, 2025. 

Since 2024, SNAP has allowed users to book hotel, car and —  in the US — air for their clients. In Canada, only hotel and car bookings have been available on SNAP. 

Testing with Air Canada will take place over a two-month period and will include commissions for members. 

Travel Leaders’ SNAP has simplified NDC, so that advisors can easily access the NDC fares without the complexity of GDS commands.

Strong growth in Canada

This was just one of the announcements made by Travel Leaders Network, where the emphasis was on the customization and efficiencies that TLN is bringing to their members, which has resulted in significant growth in Canada. 

41 Canadian agencies became new members of Travel Leaders in 2024, surpassing their target. 

This collectively generated an additional $128.4M in overall sales (a 17% increase in revenue), with new members in categories including luxury, corporate, family and group travel.

Canadian cruise bookings in particular are up 35% compared to 2024, at $213M versus $164M. Contemporary (larger) ships are up 12%, Luxury +26%, Premium +16% and River +33%.

In Canada, TLN’s “Agent Profiler” program generated 11,500 leads resulting in 2,875 bookings, equalling $30.5M in sales and $4.5M in commission in 2024. 

“We’re an organization of about 94 people. If you are a travel agency of 7 people, you have 101 people working for you,” said John Lovell, president of Travel Leaders Network, as he met with a select group of trade travel media, including PAX News, in Toronto on February 12th, 2025.  

Executives from the consortium reviewed their 2025 results and talked strategy and technology as it relates to their 6,000 travel agencies across the US and Canada. 

As a single point of contact, they provide a bespoke experience to either small or large agencies, representing over 100,000 direct sellers of travel, which is about 40% of the total distribution network. 

What’s driving their continued growth? 

“The consumer really wants validation and confirmation from a travel professional to make sure they’re going to get the vacation they want,” said Lovell. 

“We are the conduit that makes the relationship between advisors and travelers thrive. 2024 was our high watermark and 2025 looks like it will set a new high watermark.”

Expanding events, training and marketing

Christine James, vice president, Canada, Travel Leaders Network, reviewed the events Travel Leaders held in 2024. 

1,744 members, along with 519 supplier partners, participated, which included three regional meetings (Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver), 22 Mixers and their annual conference, EDGE. 

2025 Canada Fall Regionals will be held in Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver, and there is already a full slate of mixers planned across the country, with record sign-ups. 

EDGE will be held in Las Vegas June 9th -12th,  2025, with an expected attendance of 215 members from Canada. 

James also confirmed the appointment of Caroline Belgrave as new Western Canada BSM, based in Vancouver.

“Just to be clear, the Canadian operation is highly valuable to our overall organization,” Lovell said. 

“Canada’s performance is higher than the average (compared to US). They turn up at EDGE and they carry the flag. They’re loud and their boisterous and they’re professional. We’re pleased to have each and every one of them as members.”

Stephen McGillivray, chief marketing officer, reviewed the marketing tactics they deploy for their members, which range from digital, print, email and an increasing social media program. 

Over 2,000 members have Travel Leaders executing their social media messaging, a significant number given the program just launched two years ago. 

“We’re in that space between the retailer and the buyers of the product and we bring them together with disciplined programs,” McGillivray said. 

“We do two types of consumer marketing for the members acquisition marketing and retention marketing.”  

Basically, travel advisors share their member lists with Travel Leaders, and they do the targeted marketing on their behalf. 

 “This site does not sell travel. This site sells travel advisors,”  said McGillivray. 

There are 1,200 Canadian profiles on the site (vs 18,000+ American). 

“We need the Canadian retailers that belong to our network to build more profiles,” McGillivray emphasized. 

“Agent Profiler populates TravelLeaders.com. It’s important to note that if the search for a travel advisor comes from Canada, a Canadian agent will display first.” 

With so much to offer for members, it begs the question why wouldn’t a travel advisor or agency join? 

Cory Voss, chief information officer for Travel Leaders, says he hears that agents might feel they are busy enough; that they don’t need it.  

“But even if you’re relying on word of mouth, chances are a potential lead will Google you, and if you don’ have a profile, they’re probably going to call someone else. Agent Profiler can provide that validation and credential for the member.”

More benefits and improvements to the Agent Profiler program are coming, starting with assistance for the advisors to build their profiles, including the use of A.I.

Travel Leaders launched their SuperAgent program in 2022, which provides status to advisors who hit targets such as customer reviews, additional bios, photo albums, travel stories, etc. 

These are not revenue or sales based. 

After their upcoming EDGE event in June, that they will be launching new tiers, which are more performance based. 

SuperAgent Gold and SuperAgent Diamond will allocate points based not only on sales, but also on engagement and response to leads.

Technology and customization for members

Technology-wise, Travel Leaders is now running API into members’ CRM solutions.  

This will allow Travel Leaders to extract data out of their CRMs, so the member doesn’t have to provide their customer list. 

“What people have bought in the past is very predictive of what they will purchase in the future,” said McGillivray.

Their cruise booking engine, Cruise Complete, now has 21 cruise lines available for booking by members, making it a one stop shop. 

Launched two years ago, adoption has never been larger. 

Bookings are at a high and continuing to grow, with January 2025 bookings up 57% over Jan 2024 through this tool. 

Within the past 12 months, 36 different enhancements have been made based on member feedback and need to make the Cruise Complete program more efficient for members. 

EMPOWER Cruise is a program which harnesses the power of the Travel Leaders consortium by aggregating buying power for those agencies who are selling at the lowest commission level. 

This could potentially take an advisor from a 10% to 14% commission rate.

Travel Leaders provides training through live, virtual or recorded modules, covering beginner agency basics to specific types of certification (leisure, adventure, groups, honeymoon, corporate). 

New to 2025 will be a specialist certification for accessible travel. 

In 2024 there were 506,000 logins to the training library. 

Travel Leaders also works with National Tourist Boards to build relationships, so that advisors can become specialists for a particular destination. 

For example, Mexico is evaluating reinstating their Tourism Board (disbanded during the last administration), and Travel Leaders is front and centre in assisting them to reach their members’ markets in order to regain lost growth.

Lindsay Pearlman, chief operating officer for Travel Leaders, emphasized their strength is in their customization for their members. “We do 9,000 things. You only need three? You can do just three. We can do whatever you want.”

For more information, visit Travel Consortium | TL Network

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