The Travel Agent Next Door (TTAND) founder Flemming Friisdahl and I had a sort of state of the industry conversation almost exactly a year ago. Now here we were again. It’s been quite a year, so we asked, “What’s changed?” “A lot has changed,” said Friisdahl, “I mean a lot has changed.”

Curiously TTAND’s best month ever in their eight-year history (March 19 is their anniversary) was January 2020.

“We’re pretty stoked about the numbers that we’re did in February, for us, it’s extremely good – so it’s something we’re really happy about as it almost beat our best month back in January 2020”

On another positive note, staff both in Canada and India will be returning to the office in April – just a little over two years and two weeks to the day, from when the offices closed.

“From our perspective we’ve been fortunate. We’ve continued to grow in the number of partner agents that we have with us. We’re almost at a thousand – making us Canada’s biggest host agency.”

Staffing issues in the industry

Unlike some other host agencies TTAND did not terminate any staff over the pandemic, and that’s now proving to be a smart move as Friisdahl says it is getting tough to find personnel. Having a full complement of staff over February was a huge bonus as it was possibly the best month the company had in quite awhile – “It may be the best February we’ve ever had. And it may rank as one of the best months that we’ve ever had.” Said Friisdahl who didn’t have the final numbers when we spoke, but things were certainly looking very very good.

He suggests one of the big problems for suppliers today is staffing. That also becomes an important issue for TTAND and other travel agents and who pay a big price in time, frustration, and stress, with long phone waits if they have an issue that they cannot resolve within the system.

Friisdahl maintains that one of the problems with staffing is that salary levels have ‘gone through the roof’ and there is a heightened expectation of compensation. Salaries that may have been around $30,000 to $34,000 are now $40,000 to $ 55,000.

“We had a junior position and the person wanted to get 65 to start. And they were in their early twenties. Are you kidding? A) travel doesn’t pay that, and B) what are you smoking?”

He realizes that staffing issues are the same all over, “the entertainment industry, the restaurants, the whole industry … I don’t know. Everybody seems to be short staffed.”

Vaccinations and masks

It’s been a difficult time with one thing after the other, but the borders have to be reopened. “Everybody believes this,” he says, “87% of Canadians who are eligible now have been vaccinated. It’s a very high number – 45% of Canadians have had their third shot that number is going up every day. I like the idea personally, of being on a plane knowing that everybody’s been vaccinated. I like that – and I hope they can continue to do that.”

He is also believes masking on a plane makes sense and hopes that continues.

Looking ahead

Changing the subject somewhat we ask about the future of travel agents. Obviously, he has a very positive attitude, but realistically we wonder, will suppliers – airlines, cruise lines, tour operators, be more likely to market themselves directly to the consumer or are they going to focus on travel agents?

Friisdahl says he may be wrong, but he does believe that the suppliers will be more aggressive in going directly to consumers.

“I don’t know the number, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve seen a decrease of travel agents in Canada between four to five thousand agents leaving the travel industry. That would represent around 20% to 25% of the agents. I also wouldn’t be surprised if that number is conservative. One of the things that has always worried all of us is the number of travel agents getting to the age of retirement.”

However, he adds, “I’m proud to say that we really worked hard at trying to get people into travel both at a younger age, but also in their mid 40s. So, they can have another 20 years in travel before they retire.”

“A big thing that companies like us do is to help bring more people into travel in a way differently than it was done (previously), where traditionally you had to go to a two year course and then you’d come out and try to get a job and learn GDSs, both Apollo, Sabre, all that stuff. You’re not seeing it that way now.”

TTAND corporate agencies use GDSs and there are still a lot of old school agents that like having their Sabre and going in and looking for space and booking it says the TTAND founder.

“We do something that no one else does, we actually pay the agent segment fees. We actually share that with the agent.”

He says a storefront agency recently wondered whether all that TTAND offered sounded “too good to be true?”

The difference, he explained, between TTAND and some others, “is that we’re not a big corporation. We don’t have shareholders, which many of the big companies do. We don’t have any other business, but to run a host agency. Some host agency owners have other businesses. One of them has 19 other businesses and a host agency is just one of them.

“This is all we do. So, when they asked, ‘How can you afford to give a hundred percent on all these suppliers?’ I said, because we get a deal with the back end. We work with the supplier to make it a win. And for me, we don’t have to make a killing on anybody. We just have to make a living. And we want the agents to make a killing on what they sell. They did all the work, they found all the clients, they’ve had all of the grief talking and going through (the work). So why shouldn’t they make the majority of the money if not all the commission?”

“I have a very clear picture in my head – crystal clear.” He says, and that is to build something that no one else has, which we he believes TTAND has done.

Keep it simple

TTAND is technologically advanced, but what the company tries to do, says Friisdahl, and he believes does better than ‘just technology’ is to build systems for people who have no technology skills.

“That’s the whole secret. The secret isn’t just building the tools, the secret is building something that people in their late 60s are comfortable working with because they only have to click one to three buttons. That’s the secret. That’s the hard part. Luckily we have a great person in Rajdeep that makes that happen together with support from the team.”

“And we are probably trying to get down to two clicks so you can click on their client list and click on the client and you’re there.

“I believe that technology should be in the background making the agent look great … because the agent is who makes the business. We’re not Expedia or an online player or an OTA. We are a personal industry where you are talking to a person.”

He’s hoping that after what happened with COVID where some of the big online players closed down the phone lines, and just wouldn’t take phone calls, that people, “remember how they were treated by an online player versus us, where our agents answered the phone and talked and spent till the midnight, trying to figure out how to get the client’s money back or resolve the issue or whatever they had to do.”

Social media

We wondered about his thoughts on social media in terms of selling travel.

He reminded us of the time, not so long ago, when the Travel section of certain newspapers was where you wanted to be and now those same papers barely have a travel section.

“People are doing the searching online. They’re learning about it online and they’re doing it that way. So I think social media is imperative.”

He makes clear that he doesn’t mean or suggest that agents offer irrelevant or far too personal information on social media, “but you have to be on there and boost the ads and get in front of people in a way that you’ve never done before. And I think that’s so important.

To join or not to join

“When an agent looks at joining us and they say, ‘should we be The Travel Agent Next Door? Should I be self-branded?’ I believe strongly, and I say honestly, ‘I don’t think it makes a difference. I think it makes a difference who you are. And I think it really makes a difference about how aggressive you are about going out and finding clients, whatever brand that is. It’s the face, that’s the brand, that’s the calling card. It’s your face. And I believe strongly in, ‘out of sight out of mind.’

“So, you’ve got to stay in sight to stay in mind and … we do. I don’t think there are many companies (in Canada) that spend as much time trying to stay in sight.”

And it does work he says, because – when that moment comes and someone’s thinking about maybe going home based – The Travel Agent Next Door is front of mind and an almost obvious choice.

Going forward

“I think this year, if you look at budget-wise, we’re expecting that this quarter will do about 75% of what we did in 2019. Next one will be 90%, 100% and in the last quarter about 110%. And I think that’s conservative, unless something hits the fan again. Right? But even if you look at Omicron, the do-do hit the fan at just after, or just around Christmas time. And the fan is clear now. And I mean, it took about, give or take, six to seven weeks for Omicron to come and go, which is what they expected. They said about two months.

“If you look at every flare up, it’s been about two months. So, if we see another flare up, the question will be, will the government overreact, which they have done, numerous times. They’ve overreacted to diverting all testing to people who get off an airplane who just got tested within the last three days, that is stupid. You had to get tested with a PCR test within the last three days of arriving home. So, to give them another test within three days when you’ve got people who are living in Canada, that can’t get a test and they have not been tested, why not give them the test? That didn’t make sense to me.”

“Travel’s made up less than 2% of cases in Canada yet they’ve allocated so much resource towards it. It didn’t make sense. I just read an article and I don’t know if this number’s true, that it cost $1.2 billion for the testing that they did with Omicron. And how did that benefit us at that price? If we put $1.2 billion towards healthcare wouldn’t that have gotten us more?

The biggest current worry however, for the travel industry Friisdahl believes, is what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s going to happen there. “Obviously it’s wrong what Russia is doing,” he says sadly.

“I hope it finishes quickly with as few people getting hurt as possible.”

It’s what we all hope.