Winter Is Coming: What’s the strategy at TravelBrands? CEO Nathalie Tanious tells PAX

Old Man Winter will soon rear his head – and TravelBrands is forecasting a busy season of bookings and improved service for the trade thanks to new tools and technology.

TravelBrands started the year with a bang, promising travel advisors “access to the world” with its diverse offering of flights, hotels, cruises, attractions, rail passes, car rentals and more.

It’s also been a year of modernization. As revealed at TravelBrands’ Agent Appreciation shows last spring, significant upgrades have been made to the company's air consolidation system, GiGi, which now includes a calculator that agents can use to add up airfare prices and display differences.

This adds to a new and improved Access+ platform, which now has a hotel search widget, dynamic fly and drive packages, the integration of loyalty points, river cruise booking options and a redesigned dashboard.

TravelBrands has also reintroduced its 24/7 service so agents can turn to a team if something in their booking goes awry.

Winter is coming and TravelBrands is charting a pathway to success. But how will it get there?

Here, PAX connects with Nathalie Tanious, president and CEO of TravelBrands, an H.I.S.-Red Label Vacations company, to discuss the “buzzword” for long-term stays in Europe, the end of revenge travel, space exploration and her top sales tip for travel advisors this season.

PAX: What can you say about TravelBrands’ offer this winter?

Nathalie Tanious (NT): The world really is our oyster. You have people that are planning their next Disney vacation, we have another segment that's very much about cruising. Another market is about long stays in Spain and Portugal. So really, our offering is extremely broad in terms of product.

PAX: Are you tracking any new destinations or consumer behaviours this season?

NT: I don't think there's anything new that we've never seen, but I'll tell you, Portugal is hot. Portugal is the buzzword for long stays in Europe, whether it's the winter or any time of the year. That has taken on a life of its own. You have two types of travellers. You have the budget-conscious traveller (who we’re happy to have as customers through our travel agents), but you also have customers that will spend money on bucket-list destinations, such as a unique Christmas Market cruise in Europe.

PAX: What does the general booking window look like right now?

NT: We’re seeing a lot of last-minute bookings. A lot more than we did pre-COVID. I’m talking about travel within the next 45 days. And it’s not just destinations in the Caribbean, Mexico and Florida. It’s a wide range of destinations around the world.

PAX: Why do you think people are leaving things to the last minute?

NT: I think it’s a lot of wait and see. After revenge travel, people are looking for a deal. Even customers that are going to spend more money on a trip. They still want to make sure they're getting value for their money. In a way, the industry sort of did this to itself. Customers think if they wait, they’ll get a deal. That’s the perception, anyways.

PAX: So the days of “revenge travel” – people booking premium experiences in droves – are over.

NT: That trend has definitely cooled down. I think we're all recognizing that travellers, even the ones that will spend, want to make sure they’re getting value for their money.

PAX: What can you say about the state of winter vacations? Have you noticed any changes this year?

NT: There's a lot of availability and product – from mainstream hotels to cruise ships to everything else in between. Pricing has levelled off [from previous years], so the world is our oyster. Customers can choose where they want to go. Whatever your budget is, you're going to find a product that's right for you.

PAX: Is there too much product out there? Do you think there’s enough demand to support it?  

NT: I don't think there's ever too much product, but it's going to be interesting to see what consumer behavior will be like. We're cautiously optimistic. But it depends. What are the interest rates going to be like? What’s inflation going to be like? Coming out of COVID, people were spending crazy amounts of money to go on vacation. Now, everyone's taking a step back and saying, ‘Wait a minute. I have to pay my mortgage. I have to get my kids to school and to their activities.’ Things are levelling off. I think suppliers are realizing that.

PAX: The weakening dollar, the impact of inflation…Are you concerned that these things will impact sales this winter?

NT: I don’t have a crystal ball, but what we see is that Canadians will travel. The question, now, is how much are they going to spend? I think Canadians will continue to travel – there’s a lot of capacity and choice – but they may be a little more conservative when it comes to the amount of money they spend. The price of groceries, interest rates, mortgage rates, inflation rates have a huge impact. Am I cautiously optimistic that we're going to have a good winter? Yes. Absolutely.

PAX: What do you think will be this winter’s top travel trend? You mentioned Portugal.

NT: People, right now, are all about value. And they’re booking last minute. As for destinations, Canadians absolutely love Mexico and the Caribbean. That's not going to change anytime soon. And luckily, there's enough capacity for that need.

PAX: Switching gears, Canadian aviation has seen a lot of changes with the closures of Swoop, Lynx and Canada Jetlines. Do you have any concerns?  

NT: I don’t. I think these things are very cyclical. We still have some very strong Canadian airlines behind us, whether it’s Air Canada, Porter, Air Transat, Sunwing or WestJet. They're all great carriers, and they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Canadians have a broad choice. And again, pricing is levelling off.

PAX: Let’s talk about technology. Last spring, TravelBrands unveiled updates to GiGi. What has the response been like?

NT: So good. GiGi is on a roll. She's on fire. Our team has worked through the summer, incorporating NDC, which is available through GiGi today. And that's going to be continuous. As more airlines jump on the NDC platform, we're ready to keep adding them on.

It's very important to us because it always comes back to the same thing: we want to give travel agents a platform that they can do everything on. You have the GiGi portion for the air and that sits on our Access+ platform. We’ll continue to grow with new features that make the whole process seamless and super easy.

PAX: What can you say about the industry’s transition to NDC? Has it been smooth?

NT: It's never smooth, but it's a process. It's a process that we have to go through. It's relatively new, and I think we're all learning how to make it as easy and simple for everyone.

PAX: What other technology-related updates should travel advisors be aware of this winter?

NT: We just launched a telephony platform through AWS (Amazon Web Services) Connect. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of everything we’ll be offering travel agents. We’ve moved over to the Cloud and it’s an omnichannel that will allow us to communicate with travel professionals in many ways. The roll out has been one of the most seamless integrations we’ve ever done. We have a lot of bells and whistles that we’ll be launching for travel agents in the weeks to come.

PAX: How are things going at TravelBrands Encore Cruises?

NT: Cruising remains strong. We still see last-minute requests, but we have a lot of bookings – including groups – that are made further out. And the beautiful thing about cruising is that you have something for everyone. We have great partnerships with the different cruise lines. We've become an extension to them and add layers to whatever offers and promotions they have. For travel agents, it’s a one-stop shop – the cruise, the air, the pre and post.

What continues to work well is our air-sea protection program. If passengers, for whatever reason, miss their embarkation port, we'll get them to their next port (if they booked the cruise and air with us) at no cost to them. We'll pay for everything, including hotel stays.

PAX: And how is Exotik Journeys doing? The last we heard, it was experiencing significant growth. What’s driving that? 

NT: Europe, Europe, Europe, Europe. And the beauty of it is that it’s summer and winter. Long stays in winter and everything else in the summer. We offer all the destinations. We also started selling Space Perspective under the Exotik Journeys umbrella. A couple of weeks ago, we actually sold our first trip to two passengers through an agency in Quebec.

PAX: Space Perspective. That’s your new spaceflight experience. Is space tourism the next big thing?

NT: It’s a big thing if you have the wallet to pay for it. It’s a one-day trip that takes you to the periphery and then comes right back. I think there’s a market for it. There's an appetite to explore the unknown. I don’t see it becoming mainstream, but maybe in the future, it will be something similar to what expedition cruises are experiencing.

PAX: Would you ever travel to space?

NT: One hundred per cent! Please, someone have a FAM trip! I’m on it.

PAX: What else is TravelBrands doing to make things easier for travel advisors this winter?

NT: There's definitely GiGi, but of course, there's also Access+ and all the self-serve tools. That allows travel agents to make their bookings – and we see a huge shift in travel professionals wanting to book online. It’s all simple.

PAX: What about telephone wait times? How is that department shaping up?

NT: Extremely well. We're staffed up enough to make sure that come winter, we'll be ready for the rush. Last winter, we saw huge progress with wait times and calls overall. So we’re very optimistic.

PAX: Finally, what is your top sales tip for travel advisors this winter? 

NT: Do not be afraid to upsell. You want to make money, and we want you to make money. So upsell, upsell, upsell. Make it a bigger shopping basket.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

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