Before you buy a travel franchise business, it’s important to know exactly what you will get in return for your investment.
At The Travel Franchise, you can choose from a variety of packages, but all of them include the basic business necessities such as training, support, a website and marketing materials.
The franchise fee also incorporates the essentials to enable you to operate your homeworking agency and sell a wide variety of tailormade and package holidays.
Namely ABTA bonding, travel agent software and access to travel suppliers.
At The Travel Franchise, that’s over 450 travel providers – which means you can sell thousands of holidays from beach breaks to safaris, to ski and cruise, at incredible prices and commissions that we work hard to negotiate.
Over 40 of these suppliers are ‘key trade partners’ (KTPs) – travel providers with which we have a very special relationship to help our consultants make more bookings.
“Although many companies have access to these suppliers, it is this unique and very close relationship which helps our travel consultants increase their sales, not just by a little bit, but a lot,” says co-founder Paul Harrison.
“Our key trade partners commit to giving us even more training, incentives and support,” he adds, explaining that regular meetings occur between our head office trade department and each KTP to develop mutually beneficial strategies to help agents get to know a KTP’s brand and product mix.
Many KTPs invite agents on fam trips and they attend our events and conferences to give presentations in person so that our consultants can ask questions and develop a closer relationship.
And most offer regular free webinars, often with prize draws or other incentives for agents who can attend training sessions from their homes.
“KTPs offer coaching and advice plus offers and incentives to our consultants which means KTPs are always front of mind,” says Harrison. “It’s a dynamic golden partnership which has resulted in soaring sales for both our KTPs and consultants.”
One of our KTPs which has reported an incredible increase in sales is Classic, a tour operator which offers both luxury tailormade holidays (Classic Collection) and affordable package breaks (Classic Package Holidays) and works with over 4,000 hotel partners across more than 90 destinations in 37 countries. Classic has also voted us Homeworking Agency of the Year.
Strategic account manager, homeworkers, Jorge Quibbell says: “Our relationship has gone from strength to strength. The Travel Franchise is one of the most important business partnerships we have.
“We support in offering trips so that consultants can learn and sell the destination, we also pay industry leading incentives to franchisees and up to £400 per booking in incentives.”
“Not only do we host webinars with hotel and destination management partners, but we invite agents to coffee mornings, brunches, evening meals, and some one-off special events – shows and concerts. We have regular fam trips for agents, brochure fam trips and VIP trips for particularly supportive agents.”
Another KTP, Gold Medal, gives agents access to 135 airlines and special rates at 100,000 hotels, plus car hire, tours, cruises and excursions.
Nichola Marston, trade partnership manager, homeworkers, says: “NJT is one of the fastest growing and innovative homeworking agencies – it’s a pleasure to work with them.
“We enjoy a strong, strategic partnership and over the next year we will continue to grow our relationships, through training, sharing and sourcing key offers and exclusive deals, as well as hosting many NJT agents on FAM trips to help increase their product knowledge.”
Luxury tour operator Audley Travel is another KTP allowing some agents to sell incredible bucket-list holidays from African safaris to exclusive cruises around the Galapagos. The company recently awarded us the title Best Homeworking Agency of the Year and for good reason.
Greg Thurston, trade sales manager for Audley Travel, says: “Not Just Travel are one of our best supporting trade partners with sales up 100% year-on-year.
“The partnership works well for Audley as NJT homeworkers tend to match our way of working, spending quality time with their clients to arrange the best possible trip.
“We support NJT homeworkers with regular training webinars, video updates, agent-friendly marketing materials and booking incentives.”
“A huge number of travel consultants attended our virtual webinars in the last year. As one of NJT’s select key trade partners for 2023, we are very excited about our close working partnership and look forward to engaging even more with their talented travel consultants.”
Jet 2, the second largest tour operating company out of the UK, has also seen the benefit in being a KTP with The Travel Franchise/Not Just Travel.
Freya Sutcliffe, business development manager for homeworkers says: “The Travel Franchise work closely with us to create a great partnership; its growth has been huge. “We offer training opportunities for all its members, exclusive offers and provide tools and resources to help increase sales.”
Following the launch of Not Just Travel’s cruise division and Seminar at Seas last September, we also have 15 key trade cruise partners including NCL.
Laura Croft, regional sales executive, who has worked in travel for over 22 years says: “It’s an exciting relationship and with the new cruise cruise division we are working with some fantastic travel agents who want to learn more about cruise.
“Each week I have lots of meetings with the NJT cruise team to see what is working well for us, what is selling well, and to check we are on the right track and trending together.”
The result has been astounding with NJT consultants selling three times more cruises since 2019.
River cruising is also selling well. Danny Joel, sales manager, UK south, for Scenic and Emerald river cruises, another KTP, is excited about what 2023 will bring.
“We own, manage and operate all our own ships so we want to get as many franchisees onboard as possible. So for this year we have some fantastic agent rates -they can go on a river cruise for just £475 pp on an Emerald ship and for a Scenic cruise, just £670pp.”
Meanwhile, our expedition cruise partner Hurtigurten is not only helping educate agents via webinars but also inspiring consultants, hosting a number of fam trip opportunities, the first one in April consisting of a six-day sailing around the Irish sea.
In addition to tour operators and cruise lines, some of our key trade partners own or manage their own resorts. Beachcomber Tours has eight properties in Mauritius and often hosts our consultants on our Elite Experience mentorship retreats where our co-founders host and coach agents in a luxury setting.
Beachcomber UK sales manager Sarah Archer says: “It’s great to have an opportunity to meet all the consultants. We’ve now taken over 100 consultants to Mauritius and it’s now a multi-million pound partnership for us.”
Many of our key trade partners also win prestigious industry awards such as the following who were recognised as being among the best in their fields at Travel Weekly’s 2023 Globe Travel Awards.
Those awarded trophies recently include Classic Collection (Best Long-Haul Operator), Wendy Wu Tours (Best Long-Haul Specialist and Best Premium Touring Company), If Only (Best Luxury Operator) and Jetset (Best Flight Only Provider), Newmarket Holidays (Best Mainstream Touring Company), and G Adventures (Best Adventure Operator).
Our cruise KTPs also won numerous awards: Royal Caribbean International (Best Mainstream Cruise Company), Celebrity Cruises (Best Premium Cruise Company), Silversea Cruises (Best Luxury Cruise Company), and Hurtigruten (Best Specialist Cruise Company).
