Transat Distribution Canada is ‘humbly, carefully’ confident about the prospects for 2025, says the network’s GM Karine Gagnon, who notes that 2023 was an exceptional year for members. And while 2024 has not been quite as a strong, it has not been far behind. And “for me,” she says, “that’s a great place to be.
Gagnon reveals, “I have a few measures coming in from a preferred partner standpoint about what we see in sales today compared to sales last year, bearing in mind that Fall of 2023 was a really good year, and we’re still ahead with a quite a few partners compared to last year.”
The GM agrees that the travel business is fully “back to normal” after the pandemic, but “normal in the sense that, it was difficult and a little crazy last year for a lot of agencies, so the fact that it’s a little more back to normal will definitely help them.”
She adds that when factoring in labour – “it was very difficult to get staff these past couple of years” – it wasn’t necessarily sustainable to continue to be so busy. But, she says, 2024 has been better and added, “I think that’s what will hold for us next year as well.”
In 2025, senior director of marketing Marc Pelletier says TD will continue to embrace and it ongoing mission to train agents on how to use artificial intelligence to improve productivity (with a side benefit of easing possible staff shortages).
“The way we position it,” he says, “is that AI is great tool and an additional tool in the advisors tool box; for example, to get some inspiration, put together some itineraries, help them review customer communications, (and) help them to put together content and marketing strategies, blog posts, social media posts, in a very quick and efficient way.”
Three other things TDC has on its radar going forward include continuing its evolution towards being “better and more” oriented towards luxury travel, of which Gagnon states “that is the segment of travel that will have the greatest growth in coming years.”
To that end, advisors will be encouraged to become “luxury certified specialists” through TDC’s membership in Virtuoso, while preferred partners in the sector continue to increase.
“I think agents today want to more and more specialize in specific segments and we want to make sure that those who are tapping into luxury have the tools, and the partners and experiences (to do so).”
A second focus is cruising – “undeniably more and more popular with volume increasing each year with partners (who) we are strategically adding so that we can have a solid and diversified offering – both in river and oceanic cruises.”
Also strong is group, multi—gen, FIT/ a la carte travel.
Gagnon predicts that capacity increases will be limited in 2025 as suppliers will be more careful than coming out of 2023.
All together, Gagnon says “I’m pretty confident” about next year.
But she adds, with 250 branches nationally including affiliates such as Marlin Travel and Club Voyages, comprising about 2,100 agent, TDC also recently surveyed its members and asked them about how confident they were about their business prospects.
And according to the GM, there is little doubt. “The majority feel good,” she says. “They are confident about what they see today about what’s coming in for 2025.”
So, she concludes, “there are a few indicators that allow me humbly, carefully, to be confident for 2025.”
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