One of the points that Jane Clementino raised in her conversation with Canadian Travel Press was the fact that travel advisors are so busy these days – crazy busy, if the truth be known. And while they want to take a break, they feel like they can’t, she said “because there’s still so much demand” and they don’t want to lose out on that business.” 

The good news, TRAVELSAVERS Canada’s senior vice president and general manager makes clear, is that consumers are still looking to advisors to book their holidays, observing “it’s not like they’re going direct to the supplier, they’re still using the advisor and some of our suppliers have really spent the time recalibrating some of their systems and creating new platforms.” 

The trouble, Clementino said, is that now “agents are having to learn new systems and that’s a bit of a challenge for them because they don’t have time.” 

And that’s where TRAVELSAVERS Canada comes in, supporting its advisors and bringing them together with supplier BDMs at its Dine & Discover events. 

“We need to get our advisors in front of the BDMs, “Clementino told CTP, continuing, “One of the major challenges is there are not as many brick & mortars,” so the BDMs “can’t go visit them, tell them [their] story, have them pay attention to [them] for 10 minutes.” 

And that’s why TRAVELSAVERS Canada’s Dine & Discover events have become so popular and are so well attended, because it gives its members time to “refresh their education” and understand what’s changed about a supplier’s product or service.  

Back to Bricks & Mortar 

And while there may not be as many bricks & mortar agencies as there once were, Clementino said that some of TRAVELSAVER Canada’s members are opening storefronts. 

“We did have four agencies this year that opened up new storefront offices. They came out of being virtual and they wanted to have bricks and mortar again.”  

Those agencies explained that their clients were almost demanding it, telling the retailers that they “didn’t want to meet [the advisor] at a Tim Horton’s” when they’re buying a $25,000 trip on the river.  

“We want to see you in person and have the conversation in a place that’s your place of work,” was what advisors were being told by clients, Clementino related. 

Asked why this is happening, Clementino told CTP: “I think it’s just that experience,” telling about one of its members in Kitchener that “got a nice little spot so they can actually do consumer nights and they want to do that again, right.” 

She continued: “I won’t say it’s a resurgence, but there are people shifting back to ‘I want to be where people can see my name’ and especially if you’re coming in new to market, you want to have your name out there because it’s the best advertising you can have – that you have a storefront.” 

“So, I think it’s interesting. I think you’re going to see a few more people come back and go to market like that.” 

A Roadmap to AI Solutions  

Artificial Intelligence certainly has the attention of everyone in the industry, and  

Clementino and her team at TRAVELSAVERS Canada are definitely paying close attention.  

“We are supporting AI. We are doing some training on AI. We’re looking to come out with a larger platform which will support each one of our members being able to leverage that platform in different ways. But we are doing quite a bit od education around why [advisors] want it.” 

Clementino told CTP: “I’d say 75% of our members are using it; they’re all using it in bits and pieces [and] we’re just trying to create a little bit more of a program around it and we will be announcing more of our program in September when we have our conference.” 

She continued: “We have an IT roadmap and it’s pretty robust this year. Last year, we had all these really good ideas and we started to pave the way and laying down the concept of what we wanted to create, but last year being such a recovery year, we knew people couldn’t absorb it. They didn’t have the capacity to absorb it and we wanted to make sure everything was going to recover so we could afford it.” 

“So, I think those are the two things that we cared about, so this year you’ll see much more of our technology solutions – new solutions being brought to market,” she said. 

Service Delivery, Sales Tools, Strategy  

Clementino also said that TRAVELSAVERS’ business technology manager, North America, Christine Vincent has been moving things forward in terms of AI. 

“She’s been talking a little bit about what she calls the three ‘S’s’ and the first is, use it to respond to consumers through a Service Delivery and how quickly you can do that and the tone you can set and all of those good things,”  

Clementino said: 

She continued: “The second one she talks about is Sales Tools. Use it to create a kind of very provocative series of emails that you’re going to send out to your database to tease them [clients] around a certain product or destination or supplier.” 

“And the third one is really just Strategy where you can leverage AI to become more informed and instead of having to do all research, you can have that research come to you and filter through it,” Clementino told CTP. 

The bottom line, Clementino made clear is that: “It still needs a human. It still needs an advisor to manage through all of it and to really make it meaningful to the consumer, but it just doesn’t have to take as much time.” 

‘The stats that she [Vincent] has come back with is it [AI] saves you 5 hours a week if you use it effectively which adds up at the end of the year to a Month ... so, that’s pretty impressive stat. Who wouldn’t want the extra month,” said Clementino. 

But she also adds that: “What we’ve been saying to people is don’t use it [AI] so you can just keep adding work to your plate. Use it so you can actually go home at night, because there’s a lot of people – especially last year – that were teeter-tottering on just feeling the pressure of every single day, to the point where it was unhealthy. So, we’re really just trying to balance it off so that they get a little more time back for themselves.” 

All About Training 

Bringing new people into the business has become a big issue for this country’s travel industry and for and for TRAVELSAVERS Canada, Clementino said “our number one strategy” to the problem “is all around our KORE product,” which is designed to advance how the industry enlists and trains the next wave of travel advisors. 

In explaining KORE, Clementino told CTP that: “The course itself is pretty robust. We did take an extra year to roll it out in Canada because ... we had six areas within the modules that we had to modify for Canada... and three new chapters [were added] that are just Canadian chapters, including the regulatory compliance side of things, as well as consolidators because the United States [advisors] don’t really use consolidators like we do. And then we also did some updates on Canadian airlines and different things like that. So, the content is very ‘Canadian true’.” 

As for how KORE works, Clementino explained that if someone is interested in the industry, they’re going to go through a bit of a process, talking to a number of different people to determine if the course itself is of interest. 

“The course is self-paced. It’s 16 modules. It’s all digital. And each module has an exam at the end. If you did it without any pause it would probably take you 130, 140 hours; so, it’s going to take you a good month if you wanted to get through it quickly,” Clementino outlined, adding, “It’s got a very intense course or module on geography which people have lost.” 

In terms of support, Clementino said that people taking the course get a personal mentor when they sign up and that mentor is someone they can talk to if they don’t understand a component or section of the course. 

“At the end, we have a proxy exam which gets you the certification, which is also really, really good. And you can’t have Google. You can’t have your phone. You actually have to study – so, it’s like a real exam,” she said. 

“I think the nice thing is [after] your graduation you get to choose which agency you’d like to work with. So, agencies sign up to take a recruit and you get to work with that agency. Typically, you would work maybe somewhere where you’re closer to home, but at the end of the day, if they like you, then they can offer you a job.” Clementino explained. 

Just launched in Canada, KORE has already seen 25 of its members pick up licenses for the course because they want to bring people into the industry, into their businesses.  

So, part of their strategy is ‘I’ll pay for it,’ so, different members are doing different things. One person is like ‘I’ll pay for it and once you make your first pay cheque, you can pay me back 50% or whatever. Others are saying we believe in you, we’re going to pay for it; it’s not transferable, it’s just for you. And some are saying, I’ll pay 50%, you pay 50% and we’ll help you the entire way.” 

It’s certainly a good approach when you consider that the agency owner knows their community and is in a good position to pick out a person who they “think would be a perfect fit as a travel advisor,” Clementino notes.  

She adds that: “I think as soon as you start profiling people that have gone through it and they’re making a healthy living that’s just going to create more success.”