ACV making travel dreams come true

More hotel product, an incoming rebranded website and a shift in company culture are among the recent developments for Air Canada Vacations, as the tour operator heads into the winter travel season.

Following a series of successful stops across Canada this month, ACV wrapped up its 2018-19 Dreammakers trade show in Toronto last night, welcoming hundreds of agents and dozens of supplier partners (including many of the destinations and hotels featured in the latest Sun brochure) to an evening of excitement. This culminated in a performance by Toronto mentalist Yan Markson, who wowed the audience with a series of tricks, particularly one lucky travel agent who won a trip as predicted by audience members throughout the show.

READ MORE: Air Canada Vacations curates customer-focused travel in Calgary

Sun highlights

Monique Lalonde, general manager, sales – Ontario and Dana Gain senior director sales, groups and partnerships detailed the highlights of ACV’s 2018-19 Sun Collection, which will see:

• more than 700 hotels, including 77 new resorts and 13 exclusive properties
• additional flights to St. Vincent & The Grenadines and Belize
• more than 100 cruises, including the addition of the Costa Magica as of Dec. 27, 2018.
• additional capacity from cities across Canada, including an extra 31 per cent in Montreal, 15 per cent in Vancouver, 14 per cent in Calgary and 13 per cent in Toronto.
• the addition of the new B737MAX aircraft to Western Canada gateways
• the tour operator’s CareFree and CareFlex programs, two programs offering travellers’ extra flexibility and peace of mind when booking, as requested by travel agents
• a new group booking promotion, in which ACV will honour the original contract price for any additional passengers if their group size increases by up to 20 per cent.

Three pillars

According to Nino Montagnese, managing director of ACV, the tour operator is focused on what he describes as three pillars of success heading into 2019.

These include:

• a digital transformation of the ACV brand, as hinted at in the company’s latest video featured at the show and which will be fully on display via ACV’s new website, slated to arrive in January;
• a diversification of product, including new additions to its core Sun collection along with enhancements to ACV’s recently-launched Go Canada, Europe and Ultimate Escapes brochures; and
• a shift in ACV’s corporate culture through an initiative dubbed Project Excellence, which aims to “make the customer the centre of everything we do,” which saw all ACV staff undergo training at the Disney Institute.

Regarding Project Excellence, Montagnese added “by customer, I mean everyone – it starts with our employees, but that also includes external customers and trade media; we want to communicate with everyone, not just the end user.

“A year and a half ago, Air Canada launched Flight Path, an internal culture change at Air Canada; at the same time, we realized we needed a culture change as well. Air Canada is 80 years old, ACV is 38 years old, and we started to act our age!

“We need to change our culture and the way we view our future; without that, we wouldn’t be around. We always need to evolve.”