Travel Managers aims at 700

TRAVELMANAGERS is likely to hit 600 members by the end of 2019, with sights set on a target of 700 in the next couple of years.

Speaking with TD at the group’s annual conference in Perth last weekend, Grant Campbell, Chief Operations Officer, said despite increases having “pegged back a bit” the network had achieved annual double digit-growth over the past decade.

“In terms of dollars, we’re still very happy with how the business is growing...it’s only natural that those percentage growth figures will reduce a little as you get bigger and are measuring off a larger base,” Campbell said.

He spoke of a strategic plan to boost the number of Personal Travel Managers, and while cautious about growing too quickly, said 700 members was a reasonable number to aim for.

“You don’t want to grow too fast; you need to ensure your growth is manageable and sustainable and the 700 target is reasonable without compromising the services we deliver to our network,” he said.

Campbell said the TravelManagers partnership with Luxury Escapes (TD 20 Aug 2018) has “worked well” and indicated that the yearly agreement with the travel disruptor would be re-signed.

“We’re always looking at other so called disruptors out there, and whilst there are a lot of people in the industry that see them as a threat, we’d rather work out a way that we can work with them and make it add value to our business,” he added.

Declining air yields, the weak Aussie dollar and general global instability were acknowledged as threats, however Campbell was confident TravelManagers would continue to prosper.

“With the low-cost structure of our business, we’re in a really strong position to weather any storms ahead,” he concluded.