Travelscene American Express members have again been strongly advised to continue supporting preferred partners if they are expected to reap rewards from the associations and choosing not to do so could potentially threaten future business.

Travelscene Head of Product, Damien Borg, told consultants at the NCC last weekend, that to sell a non-preferred product could damage future business giving competitors the ability to steal potential business.

“For every non-preferred product, we have a preferred product to sell, but it’s up to you to educate yourself on that,” Mr Borg said.

“Every dollar you sell, they use against you to steal customers in future.”

Mr Borg said the group was committed to growing sales in their channel as a priority, adding preferred partners were considered to be a “lifeline to our business”.

“We are ready and prepared to help combat non-preferred activity,” he said.

According to General Manager, Jacqui Timmins, some 55 per cent of current member sales are through preferred partners, an improvement but hard to quantify as a large proportion is toward hotel bookings, which are differentiated from wholesale and air transactions.

“There’s a leakage but there’s an improvement.  We’ve got so many preferred suppliers getting behind them (members), we’re a lot smarter now with the tools we give them to show what impact they are having on their business with what they are losing out on when they don’t support them (preferred partners),” Ms Timmins said.

Ms Timmins revealed agents’ feedback toward preferred products was constantly provided to suppliers to encourage more point of sale material, marketing and advertising.

“Our focus is on increasing our cruise partners and cruise in general.  The Travelscene wholesale product is getting great support,” Ms Timmins said.

Consultants were also advised to join the newly re-launched Quantum Consultant Programme (QC) to reap benefits which has already provided $160,000 or 30 million points for members.