travel affiliations aka “who’s looking out for you?”

TRAVEL AFFILIATIONS

AKA “Who’s looking out for you?”

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Framework

Focus for presentation is…

Review Survey results

Identify trends in Affiliation

Answer questions about the value of Affiliations and if you should

invest in them.

“I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”

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What is an Affiliation?

An Affiliation is a paid membership program that includes elements of one, two, or all three elements.

Amex & CWT

Virtuoso, Signature

Tzell and Altour

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Who we are members of? More than one?

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Number of years in program Loyalty to program

Average is 5.5 years

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Why go alone?

I am always looking/trying new strategies given the ever changing

industry landscape. Affiliation relationships only work when

strategies align. (Such as Expedia relationship). However, may be

looking for alignment in '10.

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I could never find one that gave me a decent value for their cost.

Most people I talk to always mention marketing for their reason of

membership. We find that between our marketing program and

V.coms we cover it almost as good as the affiliates.

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Why go alone?

Of our corporate business, 95% is actually corporate - being in an

American Hub, we do better with our own override agreement, so at

this point cost justification to be "affiliated" does not seem to bring

a value.

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We are pleased with our success in negotiating solid

contracts/overrides without the need to engage in any affiliations as

this time.

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Who did you used to date?

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Why did you dump them?

Dumpee Reason for Leaving

Amex At the time we left in 2002, the AMEX rep program was a mess, very little support for corporate agencies, and BCD (then World Travel) was all over our neighborhood.

ABC Used to affiliate with ABC Corporate Services....needed better global solution

Travel Savers Travel Savers (does that count?)....we left because Casto's after-hours, FSI, are so great!

Ensemble Virtuoso caters to a more luxury market.

Other Lufthansa City Center

Radius We left Radius after the leadership became disorganized; they commissioned a very expensive rebranding effort without consulting the membership; and the membership was getting too large for any real networking to occur.

Travel Leaders

Didn’t show ROI

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Why did you dump them?

Dumpee Reason for Leaving

Giants / Ensemble

We were affiliated with Giants which is now Ensemble. I thought Virtuoso had more to offer.

Amex AmEx was expensive and did not help our business GlobalStar was not a good fit

BCD Lack of follow through.

BCD Too costly - new affiliation included a lot of marketing pushing business our way.

Amex When we left AMEX, they were concentrating more and more on leisure. Didn't meet our needs. We also belonged to Uniglobe, still do, offically, but they have become a non-entity in the marketplace

Travel Leaders

Corporate sales conflicts

Hickory Hickory replaced by Radius. Larger consortia with better coverage

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`Top reasons for choosing your affiliation

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`Show me the money!

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Yes, go to this Affiliation!

Referred Reason to join

BCD BCD has great people, and they don't hesitate in sharing almost everything with their affiliates. The affiliates themsevles are strong agencies. I think the affiliates program might do well under new leadership in place, but we'll see.

Global Star Most recently made great strides in offering more corporate tools, resources and knowledge.

Tzell For smaller CBTG agencies, yes...The "big boys" probably don't need Tzell. Commissions (upfront & back end) are FAR superior to anything we had on our own. Airline reps actually retun my calls now AND they really try to help when we're in a bind (gasp!)

Virtuoso It caters to luxury market and any agency that deals with up market clientele should join. It is also appealing to up market outside agents.

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Virtuoso I would recommend Virtuoso to anyone interested in growing the leisure side of the business.

HRG HRG is cost effective for Corporate branding.

BCD [It’s] So-so

Virtuoso Yes!

Travelsavers [It’s] So-so

Amex Yes/No Each affiliation we have participated in has been disappointing to some extent. You really have to know what you want out of it. Although AMEX has been much better than Carlson. The partnership to new business, products for corporate, marketing.

Virtuoso I would recommend it to an agency with high end leisure. They do have good air contracts also.

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Amex The network works hard to engage all members and provide above average programs for members to utilize

Signature Signature for leisure has great marketing support and opportunities

Tzell Tzell has grea air deals

Travel Leaders

Excellent commissions and marketing programs and support

Virtuoso Virtuoso provides exceptional value for clients with amenities and value added programs not available through other organizations. Supplier / Agency relationships are extremely valuable

Tzell No brainer

Travel Leaders

It's on the move and aggressively attacking business in my "space". Still a work in progress.

Jay: Anything to add?

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Tzell Higher upfront and backend commission than any we can get on our own.

Radius Radius is finally making some good progress and I would recommend others consider it.

Virtuoso Virtuoso has been "fine" but it is hard to tell if we have an actual return on what we pay to be part of it.

Virtuoso Virtuoso provides better than off the shelf purchases, client can buy directly

Tzell Tzell up front and back end commissions are terrific.

Signature With Signature it is the leisure marketing programs taht are really slick

HRG / Signature/ G21

If an agency had the same needs that we have then I would recommend all of our affiliations.

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Amex Amex has helped us raise our profile with customers. Now attacting higher spend customers.

Radius Need Radius to compete with large agencies.

Virtuoso Virtuoso is a superlative provider of high end products, and offers great assistance

Note: No one declined to recommend their affiliation. …Are they all good then?

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Will you renew?

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Why or why not renew?

Affiliation To renew?

Reason to join

BCD Undecided We probably will, but we're looking around.

Tzell Yes Other than our eternal souls, it didn't actually "cost" anything to become part of Tzell. We have to "share" any commissions generated, but the commissions are far better that what we had previously, so we're way ahead of the game...

BCD / Virtuoso

Undecided BCD: So-so Virtuoso: yesTravelsavers: yes

Amex Undecided We just changed status levels so we will see how this effects the business.

Virtuoso Yes I bring in a lot of revenue from the air commisions and our clients enjoy the perks from the hotels and cruises.

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Why or why not renew?

Affiliation To renew?

Reason to join

Virtuoso Yes Value added and supplier programs continue to assist with securing new business - both corporate and leisure

Tzell Yes With the current economy, we would be struggling financially if we were not affiliated.

Travel Leaders

Yes It's still slightly over 2 years away, so I reserve the right to exercise my woman's perogative and change my mind....

Amex Yes Program continues to drive opportunities for us.

Note: No one indicated that they were planning on switching. Is your program that good? What is the cost to change?

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Who would you switch to and why?

Of Interest..

Why interested

Amex or Travel Leaders

I've heard good things about AMEX under the leadership of Ellen Bettridge. It would be ironic if we left BCD to go back to AMEX. We are also hearing some good things about Travel Leaders.

Amex Best brand in the business.

Radius We might take another look at Radius under its new leadership.

For those that answered vast majority indicated that they “didn’t know” who they would switch to. Only a couple votes for Amex, Radius, and TravelLeaders.

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Questions from the peanut gallery

How does each organization handle other affiliates bidding on the

same accounts? What training does your affiliation offer? agent

level, management level and owner level?

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Global Presence as it relates to BCD

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I know some members belong to Travel Leaders and would like to

see how it has changed since leaving Carlson.

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Questions from the peanut gallery

Why would an agency belong to more than one. How costly is it to

have dual affliations.

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Cost of AMEX membership for affiliate agencies

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Are there other travel companies structured like Tzell?

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What is/are the most important things to you and your agency when

you consider an affiliation with another agency (income potential,

support services, the brand that you will associate with your agency,

etc)?

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Questions from your illustrious presenters.

Who is looking to sell their ARC to an Affiliate partner?

Are there concerns with ARC's renewed interest in denying ARC

ownership changes when working with an Affiliate?

travel affiliations aka “who’s looking out for you?”

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