Tracy Parkinson

Travel Counsellors is highlighting the importance of providing ‘true’ business development support to home-based agents, with the company focusing even further on support tools and training it provides to its Travel Counsellors.

This includes a host of initiatives and programmes designed to focus on each individual agent’s business and deliver the very best training and one to one advice. A special ‘Going for Gold’ programme has been launched to focus on helping agents achieve the company’s top performing ‘Gold’ status, as well as ensuring current Gold Travel Counsellors in the country maintain this. The company’s support team, based in Melbourne, are also setting up regional bespoke and tailored training programmes, offering personal business development in their agents’ home states.  

Deb Duncan who joined Travel Counsellors in July as General Manager said this is one of the many attractions in joining the company. “We understand the true focus of what business development is, offering a totally different support to our Travel Counsellors as opposed to what is generally experienced by agents in a retail shop environment.”

“From day one all our Travel Counsellors are provided with their own personal business development plan, catered to their own strengths and goals,” says Business Development Manager Tracy Parkinson. “They are never left on their own. We are always there to give advice, provide training and identify opportunities to help them to build successful and flourishing businesses. What makes us different is the experience we offer. We have been there and can offer first hand advice and support that we feel is so essential to an agent building their business from home. We pride ourselves on the fact that we offer true business development support.”

Tracy joined Travel Counsellors in 1999, before which she had extensive experience within the industry having worked in retail travel agencies in the UK. She joined the team in the company’s Australian operation in 2010 as Business Development Manager and has since focused on further enhancing and implementing a host of innovative support tools and programmes designed to help agents build their businesses and combat the global economic doom and gloom.

Further initiatives include regular business development updates and training via the company’s own in-house webcast TCTV, which is broadcast to the company’s agents on a weekly basis via its innovative intranet system. It has also launched a special training show every Thursday, in which suppliers and product experts can share information and advice with agents on the latest products and events within the industry. The show also allows the company’s Travel Counsellors to interact live on the show and ask any questions they may have.

“Alongside this we are constantly enhancing the marketing support we provide,” says Tracy. “Our Business Development support includes creating professional mail shots and marketing material to help TCs promote their businesses and keep in touch with their customers. We are constantly working on new and innovative marketing ideas catered to each agent. In addition to this, we believe it is so important to reward our Travel Counsellors for their hard work and really make them feel part of the unique family ethos we have as a company, we are putting together more and more exclusive educational trips, as well as lots of internal incentives with suppliers to keep agents motivated and focused.”