Travel Market Place Celebrates 10 Years with Largest-Ever Conference

There wasn’t any tin or aluminum on hand, but that didn’t stop Travel Market Report and some 700 travel advisor, supplier, and media attendees from celebrating the 10th anniversary of Travel Market Place in Toronto.

This year’s TMP East gathered together more than 550 advisors and 130 suppliers – more than any year prior – in Toronto for two full days of general sessions, panels, workshops, and a elbow-to-elbow trade shows.

“We have a really strong two days in store for you,” said Brian Israel, senior vice president and publisher for Travel Market Report. “We’ve really worked hard to hone in on content that that we’re going to be providing, whether it be mainstage or in our breakout sessions.”

It’s a far cry from the first Travel Market Place, which kicked off in 2013 with 150 attendees.

“We need to look back to say, look how far we’ve come,” said emcee Geraldine Ree, entrepreneur and author of two best-selling books, talking a little bit about the history of TMP.

“The parent company, Travel Market Report, saw a gap in the market. They said we have all this incredible supplier information. We have all this product knowledge, but we need a place where we can have conversations about it, because you learn more in a five-minute conversation with your sales representative than you will in a four-hour movie.”

In the 10 years (technically 11, but there was no TMP East in 2020) since TMP launched, supplier-advisor interaction and peer learning has taken center stage. This year’s conference kicked off with an inspiring talk from media personality, author, and Travel Best Bets president Claire Newell, who offered eight tips on how to be an extraordinary travel advisor.

Ontarians value advisors
Though not all advisors attending Travel Market Place live and work in Ontario, the vast majority do and later on day one of the show Richard Smart, president and CEO of the Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO), offered statistical proof of the growing trust in the province’s travel agency community.

Recent research by TICO found that 65% of survey respondents trust the travel industry – up from 55% in 2023 and 52% in 2021.

More importantly, 68% of respondents believe that travel advisors are “extremely valuable” or “valuable,” an increase from 55% in 2023. When talking only to consumers who are aware of TICO, that number goes up to 83%.

“Interestingly, those between the ages of 25 and 44 valued travel advisors the most,” Smart said. “If you’re not already serving this demographic, there may be an opportunity to increase your business with Gen Z and Millennial travelers.”

Frequent travelers – those traveling three times a year or more – are most likely to see the value of a travel advisor, Smart added.

State of the industry
Some of the most robust conversations of the first day were the conversations between agency consortia and host executives and Dan McCarthy, Travel Market Report’s vice president and editor-in-chief.

A dominant topic of conversation was technology and automation.

Automation, said Mike Barron, senior director of franchise operations for Expedia Cruises, is a “pretty significant buzz word right now.”

He attributed the buzz of automation to a number of factors including the complexity of post-pandemic travel, the flood of travel demand that has advisors busier than ever, the expectations of clients who want more detailed, comprehensive information faster than they’ve ever demanded it before, and the proliferation of new technologies – including A.I. – that can help advisors deal with it all.

Speaking specifically about A.I., Barron said it one of the first things he’d like to see it applied to – what he called the low hanging fruit for the advisor community – is the administrative work and back-office tasks that can take up anywhere from 40% to 60% of advisors’ time.

“It’s efficiency driven by automation,” he said.

Younger advisors, new advisors
Zeina Gedeon, CEO of Trevello also talked about the need for automation and technology, but paired that with the need for younger entrants coming into the agency industry who are comfortable with new technologies. It’s the younger advisors, she said, that bring new ideas, including new ways of using technology.

“We definitely do need the younger generation, because in our industry, the problem is we are so entrenched in it that we don’t even think about it,” Gedeon said.

She added that as an industry, “we need to change our mindset,” and that includes thinking about new ways of approaching being an advisor. 
When asked what her elevator speech to young people would be to entice them to become travel advisors, Gedeon said, “Imagine sitting on the beach today, tomorrow in Europe, the day after climbing some mountain, but make sure you have Internet, and you can work from anywhere and make money.”

Mark Stubbert, vice president of member relations at Ensemble also talked about bringing new advisors into the industry. In particular, he talked about the importance of training.

“All these owners, you’re out there and you’re growing your business, you don’t have the time to train them [new advisors],” he said.

Like all of the agency groups represented at TMP this year, Ensemble created an in-house training program so owners don’t have to worry about finding the time to get their new employees or ICs up to speed.

In talking about new advisors, Stubbert spoke less about the need to bring more advisors on, and more about getting them up to speed faster so they can earn a decent living more quickly. That, he said, is critical to the future of the agency channel.

“We want them to be at the dinner party saying, I’m a travel advisor and I’m proud of it and you know what, I can make a living from this. If we can’t do that, then it’s problematic.”

Taking back advisors’ share of the pie
While the push for automation was one result of the post-pandemic surge of demand, there was another, more dire outcome.

“B2C is gaining momentum,” said Jane Clementino, senior vice president and general manager, Canada for TRAVELSAVERS. “What happened post-pandemic was that demand was incredibly over the top. There was an overflow of demand, we lost 30% to 35% of our advisors, and there was no way we could service everybody… Some of that overflow went directly to suppliers.”

As a result she said, there has been a 10% shift away from the trade to direct business, and while the move away from the trade is starting to stabilize, agencies need to ask themselves how to get those 10 clients back.

Her suggestion to advisors was two-fold. First, find a way to support clients’ loyalty to specific brands.

“How do we support these loyalty programs? What can we do to leverage our intelligence there, to extend that vacation, to upgrade that vacation?”
Second, Clementino advised agencies and advisors not to give up on booking air for their clients.

“We need to find a way to reevaluate the fact that we’re going to give air back to the suppliers because once we do that, the supplier is inundating that client with all kinds of marketing… all these things that are taking them away from us,” she said.

Canadian traveler trends
McCarthy wrapped up his State of the Industry session with Una O’Leary, general manager, Canada for Virtuoso Travel, who spoke about some of the trends she’s noticed when it comes to Canadian travelers. These include a longer booking window and a traveler intentionality that’s a somewhat new phenomenon.

Driving that intentionality are three motivators: the desire to relax and disconnect, a desire for adventure, and romantic holidays.

“People are taking more time to travel but they’re also looking for things that are more immersive,” she added.

Speaking specifically of cruising, she said Canadian travelers want to go to destinations where they have longer stays and more nights in port.