After months of extensive research of the TL Network (TLN), to determine if it would be “the right fit” – The Travel Agent Next Door executive team hosted an exclusive presentation for its 900 plus partner agents detailing TNL’s features and benefits in detail. The subsequent vote was 98% in favour of joining the TL Network.
The agreement will become effective November 1, 2021.
“The main program incentives which ultimately felt right for TTAND to make the move were the exclusive Cruise Program, the extensive Hotel Program and the valuable marketing materials,” said Flemming Friisdahl, Founder & CEO, TTAND.
Roger Block, President of TL Network agreed, “Canada continues to be an important market for TL Network and all of Internova Travel Group, our parent company. Partnering with TTAND allows us to continue to provide leading Marketing, Technology and support for our Canadian members while evolving to meet the needs of the market. TTAND is an icon in Canadian travel, and we can’t wait to be a part of their continued success.”
“One of the foundations of The Travel Agent Next Door is continue to look for opportunities that will make it better for our agent partners. I had a number of agent partners join in 2020 and they spoke very highly of TL Network. Based on this we spent close to 80 hours researching the value proposition of TLN versus our present consortium,” said Friisdahl. “We found we were able to get significantly MORE hotels, cruise booking dates and marketing than from our former consortium.”
Superior hotel, cruise and direct mail offerings
The SELECT Hotel Program features over 1600 luxurious hotels globally. Hotels include some of the most distinguished and premium hotels, including 117 Four Season properties, 170 Marriott International properties and also features numerous properties from Jumeriah, Belmond, Ritz, Mandarin, Peninsula, Shangri-La, IHG, Hilton and others.
On top of the client benefits which include VIP amenities in almost 70% of properties as part of the program, agents also have major incentives including enhanced commission up to 20%, discounts off best available rates and gift certificates with villa bookings. TL Network also features the Worldwide hotel program offering 42,000 hotels over 169 countries with differentiated and discounted rates.
TTAND will also be joining the unique cruise program with TL Network, featuring CruisePRO booking engine and a consumer version for agents’ clients to utilize. The TLN cruise program offers the most groups of any other consortium, securing almost 90,000 cabins with one of the leading cruise lines. The cruise program offers hosted tours with Distinctive Voyages, Culinary and Wine themed sailings, Private Car & Driver programs and include 4,000+ amenity departures.
TL Network’s direct mail program features Postcards Magazines, Luxury Travel and VIP Cruise all scheduled to be printed in 2022. TLN has amended their print marketing to feature Canadian pricing and Canadian wording in order to be TICO Compliant.
“We are pleased to bring TTAND into the TLN family as we all come out of this pandemic,” said Lindsay Pearlman, Senior Vice President of International Leisure at TL Network. “We’ve been focused on developing products and services that add value to the traveller while increasing earning opportunities to the advisor. TTAND continues to grow based on their continually leading innovation and focus on their advisors, we are thrilled to be part of that.”