UK - TTC Trafalgar

0:00Welcome to UK IntelliCast, your regular podcast where we get the lowdown from suppliers and colleagues to help you succeed as advisors. Hello IntelliTravel and welcome to the latest edition of IntelliCast, your dedicated Travel Advisor podcast. My name is Kelly Cooks and I am your host for this podcast. I am the commercial director here at IntelliTravel looking after the UK, Ireland and of course now our brand new territory, the UAE. Today I am very excited to be welcoming Poly back from TTC and anybody that follows the trade news will have seen that it's been a very exciting few days for TTC with lots of announcements. So this podcast is perfectly timed. So first of all welcome back Poly, I know you've been on before. Yes, yes thank you Kelly, lovely to be back.

1:02Lovely to have you back. So let's start I think because a lot of people will already know the NNTTC, there will know you and your team. So let's talk a little bit first for anybody that perhaps is a little bit familiar or perhaps isn't at all. What is TTC about now? What will people have known you for? What are your brands that are under the umbrella at the moment? Well as I have just the end of August we have four brands within our umbrella at TTC so we have Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Cost Saver and Contiki. So we had four brands offering something for everyone in the touring sector. We like to think that we had tours for any and everyone. Fantastic. And with those every brand was slightly different wasn't it in terms of how you present it, who is aimed at and what the tours included and my corrects? Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's a big portfolio and I think this is something that even us as a sales team

2:04we found challenges the time to talk about every single individual brand in one go. Because like you say there's there's cost Saver for that budget friendly customer. There's premium tours with Insight Vacations and then you've got our classic tours the Trafalgar. But then we've also got Contiki which is our youth brand. So there was lots and lots to talk about. Pre the first of September but it's all changing and we're really excited to share that information with you today. And you will notice anybody that is listening very carefully that Polly and I are talking about this in the past tense because to your point everything is changing isn't it Polly? There's lots of big decisions being made about how the business is going to move forward and what the brands will look like. So over to you you tell us about what's been happening. Yeah, so we have which Trafalgar is going to be our power brand. So from the first of September Trafalgar is going to be our power brand unifying all the other brands within the Trafalgar headline brand.

3:05So we're really thrilled that the main focus will be Trafalgar. Now this is going to be a phase over about three years. We're not kind of taking brands away but we're unifying it's a unification of bringing in the insight vacations tours and the cost over tours under that one umbrella of Trafalgar. And what that means is we're actually offering customers three different value tiers within the Trafalgar name. And don't get me wrong, you can still book cost a run in site vacations. But as of the 30th of September you can book what's called one of our value tiers. So for saver is our is our value tier for which actually has all of the cost saver tours within that. We have classic which is the Trafalgar all the tours that currently exist that you know and love under the classic tag. And then we have premium under Trafalgar which is all of the insight vacations. So for those customers that want that elevated experience and they want the higher level hotels

4:11then those customers would be directed towards our premium tag under the value tiers of Trafalgar. And hopefully that hopefully that makes things a lot more simple and easier to remember rather than remembering each of the individual brands. I think he does and they are terms that we're very familiar with. So if somebody says premium you automatically think about what a premium tour might look like. So the brand names are they staying or are they going the ones that we know at the moment. So the ones we know so there is a set of three year transition for this. We're not just going to switch off brands so that the product is still there for all three of our brands. It will exist. The websites are still there. You can still book an insight vacations tour on our Trafalgar agent portal. But equally as I said from the 30th of September you'll actually see two different options. So for an insight vacations you can book it under inside or you can book it under Trafalgar premium. And then as we go through to Q1 of next year there may be some branding changes there but

5:18again customers can still book inside vacations and cost saver. But we will be looking to develop that Trafalgar branding for the three values that we have throughout 2027. So it might just say for example if you're booking one of our Italy trips in site vacations through the Trafalgar premium tag it will actually say Trafalgar premium tour operated by insight vacations and that will be throughout 2027. And then on to 2028 this is when the changes will be happening and the brand names of cost like the cost saver and insight vacations won't be there. We don't know the date yet of confirmed of that but obviously I think the websites will still be live but they'll feed customers through to the Trafalgar premium section on that website as well. So we don't know which dates in 2028 obviously it's a journey for us and it's a journey that we obviously want to take our travel agent partners on and we want to for you guys

6:19to be the first to know before it obviously goes out there to our customers as well. I'm guessing that as well as simplifying this for customers and for advisors will it also make it easier for you to grow the brand awareness as well and get people to not only knowing understand Trafalgar and everything that it's about but also come into their advisor and actually ask for the product too. Yeah absolutely so Trafalgar is I think on well on most well no brand globally actually and and there's been they're not kind of just thought yet we're going to go with Trafalgar. There's been lots of kind of research there's been lots of forum groups that have really looked into what the best way forward for us to kind of have this brand unification and it was that Trafalgar and even in the UK Trafalgar is kind of the most popular brand. It's our biggest brand for our UK market so it made sense for us to stick with that brand and and have that as our our power brand if you like and going forward.

7:22But there is there was lots of opportunity obviously we've we've created new new products we've got brand new tours out for this year we've introduced River crews this year and we've got small group tours as well recently announced that across all all three of our value tiers we have small groups available so there's lots of new things and within that to make it much much easier to understand we have travel styles we actually have five travel styles within Trafalgar now so you've got your tours and that's that's all your tours from your your value tiers your saver classic and premium and that's all the tours that we know and love obviously there's another travel style which is River cruising we've obviously got two ships out this year we've got another ship launching next year for the same which is the Dreamer which we're very excited about another and travel style is rail journeys now we understand there's a huge market out there for rail journeys people don't necessarily want to travel by coach they want the rail as part of their journey so our our program is is

8:26smaller than we'd like right now but it's something that we're absolutely investing in and growing. Another of one of our travel styles is small groups so I did mention this small groups is absolutely popular sometimes those customers don't want lots of people within their group they want that choice and there's that option there and they and you can also have three different value tiers within that small group as I've mentioned and then we're also developing up group sales now we know group sales within telly is absolutely huge and we've had some real successes with group bookings and across all of our brands actually but and again there's lots of opportunity there to sell whether it's custom groups or you can join it and already existing date there's lots of opportunities so I think having the travel styles which is where your your customer chooses what kind of style how they want to travel with Trafalgar and then you align up with their their value tier of literally how much they'd like to spend and what sort of value they'd like

9:29kind of it if they want that flexibility with SEMA they can book that on a more budget a better budget and then you've obviously got the classic which is obviously all the inclusions that you get with the Trafalgar tour and then you've got that premium with those elevated premium experiences as well amazing so you really do have something for everybody there which I like and I'm presuming that you are also expecting that a customer probably won't just stay within one of the travel types and one of the categories of the save a classic premium they might move around between those depending on what the objective in the budget of the trip is. Yeah absolutely and I think this is one of the the biggest parts of the research that we did is that we want to keep those customers we want repeat bookers so to give those those customers that choice so perhaps maybe in their their early 50s they want to do a cost save but they want to have that flexibility and then perhaps maybe later on in life they're looking at doing a multi-generational

10:29family trip on a river cruise perhaps and maybe want to do a group picking and then later on down the line perhaps maybe further on into a time and they might look at doing a premium tour and having more of that elevated experience so it gives lots of choice for the customer to hopefully to stay with with you it is an intelligent but also for us as a brand of Trafalgar because it's all in one place and you may find I'm thinking that somebody might come in on a save a trip for example but then as they do evolve through life in different stages they might then I don't know they might have a honeymoon inside they want to do a premium and then they might have a family and decide that something else suits them better so it does keep everybody within that throughout the full life cycle which is something we talked the advisors about as well is making sure that you are part of that customer's journey throughout every stage in their life. Yeah absolutely I think once you get those customers and they book with you and we've got some fantastic FIFA reviews on

11:30our on our tours already once they travel with us and then they realise that there's something different there's something more that they can do they can do on rail holiday there is so much choice and it's it's just as important for us to retain our customers it is for Inteliagians too that's so true and there's so many different ways that you can experience a destination is my favourite topic at the moment is Japan because I've been recently but if I think about the different types of travel there you know you can do it as a very premium trip you could do the classic Japan piece you could do it as a saver so it really just depends what the customer is looking for from that trip doesn't it? Yeah absolutely and you've hit the nail on the head there we do so many different versions of Japan and it's even featured in our rail journeys portfolio as a train journey that you can do on the bullet train as well so there are many different choices and options for your customers and clients to do. So what would you recommend for an advisor that now you've got these if they are speaking to a customer what are the questions that you think

12:36they should be asking to place them with the right product now that you've got these different bans? Yeah I think finding out what their budget is is quite key here so once you understand what's the value tier is suitable to them so whether they they are looking at some kind of the saver option they're on a bit of a budget but they want to get the best out of seeing the destination and still having that travel director still having the accommodation and a transportation but but their budget is lower then absolutely go for saver but I think another question once you found out what their budget is is how would you like to travel what is it that really makes a holiday a well moment for you is it that you want to go and see lots of different destinations and be really immersed in the destinations lots of inclusions you can look at those classic tours and perhaps maybe they they don't want to unpack more than more than once so a river cruise could be a really great option I think because we have river crews and we have touring there's so much

13:39choice there with with the fact that the customer they can do a river cruise they can add on a tour as well if they like or if they just want to unpack once and stay on the ship they can but they still get that experience that we have when they when we do excursions and things so I think there's there's lots of options to try and understand what it is the customer is looking for specifically on their trip and then with group sales you know this is this is something that is always a tricky one when when you've got one or two customers you're just booking on it can be quite simple to turn that into to much bigger bookings and it's just looking around you in your communities and and and maybe the groups that you're working with maybe it's a wine club or a sports group or a association and people just within your network or even multi-generational families have a look at a group sizes from the nine plus so it's actually not a huge amount of people and we've got complete flexibility as well so it might be worth just asking that question of have you thought about the rest of the family going on this trip is it is it a celebration is

14:44it and is it something that you want to want to do is it a big family gathering so there's yeah there's lots of options there and I've got I do say key task in those questions find out what it is what their value is but also find out how they'd like to travel because we we really do have something for everyone. Great thank you now I do have to ask you about one of your other brands because it is conspicuously missing from everything that we have talked about isn't it so Kanteke which you know is popular with our advisors tell us what's happening with Kanteke as part of this. Yeah I didn't want to miss out Kanteke actually so from from the first of September I'm now a poly from Trafalgar and Kanteke so we are no longer TTC tour brands but yes let you say Kanteke is absolutely there it's a fantastic sheath it's a great brand is a fantastic youth brand for 18 to 35s there's lots of new tours and new trips that have been released over the last few months so the the program is developing and there's also some some great great value trips in there as well

15:49we've launched really good value trips to India and Asia and we've got some gorilla trekking we've got the Thailand took tux and Vespas in Cambodia we've just got some really fantastic trips we're ever evolving our brand with with Kanteke so there is lots of things to come down the line also with that so watch this face some of the things you've launched do look incredible and I think we've talked about these on one about other podcasts but the Vespas the gorillas there's some really unusual itineraries there but things that we know are on people's bucket list but all packaged up with all of those benefits that come with a Kanteke booking which I really like because if I look at you know my niece now is 18 and the type of travel that she wants to do is exactly what Kanteke offer and those types of itineraries are exactly the things that she wants to do you know she wants to be posting on Instagram that she's had these amazing experiences so I think Kanteke is such a strong

16:53brand yeah and I think they they have to evolve I mean the youth market is constantly evolving and they always want more they always want different and exciting opportunities and like you say it's those Instagramable moments they don't necessarily want to as an 18-year-old go out and go to Megaloof and drink their body weight and vodka I think gone are the days of that people want to have these amazing immersive experiences with like like-minded people in a safe environment and that's exactly what Kanteke does does she really want to debug all the day then I'm sure she absolutely would but I can tell that we're from the same era poly because I also went to Magalof in falloraki and that was my type of dream trip back then but I'm sure we'll get her traveling with you at some point happiness so where can advisors go to find out more about this because we've covered quite a lot of ground over the last 15 minutes and I know that the website will start to change and reflect that but if anybody has any other questions and I'm thinking if anybody's got somebody booked

17:57onto one of these brands that isn't departing yet they might have some queries about that so where's the best place to go to find out more so we do have the lovely Donna Nelson and I know the team probably knows her very well but Donna Nelson is our home working sales manager in the team and her email is Donna.nelson at ttc.com so please feel free to reach out to her equally we have our travel agent portal which I believe is on your your internet site for agents to access but all the information is there there is actually training modules on there so you can learn a bit more about the new era of Trafalgar and the Brown Unification we've got we did a live recording this morning on a bit of a training update about what what it all means and so if you want to learn more detail about everything that's happening then you can go on to our travel agent portal so and as I mentioned from the 30th of September that's when you'll start to see the changes

18:58where you can book a a customer on say a Trafalgar Premium but also on the inside locations so there's there's choice there and there's options but but all the training and the updates will be flowing through over the next couple of weeks on our travel agent portal. Fantastic thank you very much Polly and you are right we do have a page per brand in our back office at the moment so for advisors watch this space on that because that will be updated to reflect the changes that Polly has talked about today so that you can find everything very easily in our back office as well. Well we are out of time Polly but thank you so much as always for joining us it sounds like it is an ever evolving exciting time for you so is there any more big clues we need to look out for as this enough to keep you busy for now. Oh I don't think I said anything live but there there is more to come so watch this space. Okay we will get you back on another podcast when you can tell us a little bit more about that. Thank you. Great well thank you

20:02Polly and for everybody else thank you so much for tuning into the latest edition of the podcast please join us again for another episode very soon and until then stay well and happy selling you. Subscribe to this channel to get updates on all the new UK and telecast podcasts.