‘We’re used to having to prove our worth’ says James Ferrara Group CEO of Inteletravel at a supplier-studded breakfast briefing held yesterday in Dublin’s College Green Hotel where Ireland Manager Ann Marie Durkin introduced the global Inteletravel team.
Following breakfast Tricia Hughes, UK and Ireland Managing Director of Inteletravel opened the business briefing by explaining how Inteletravel started in 2018 in the UK; followed by a quick expansion into Ireland with now over 1000 members here, their key goal is to replicate the UK success in Ireland. She explained that the UK journey from infancy to maturity wasn’t an easy path but that now they were hitting serious achievements and have gained award-winning status, with real recognition by partners like Celebrity, Classic Collection and Virgin Voyages.
Tricia then paused her update to introduce Group CEO James Ferrara to the conversation. James focused on partnership importance as a pillar of their business and outlined the growth strategy of the business while emphasising that they are on a 34-year journey of building relationships across the United States, UK, and now Ireland. James shared a personal story about his own Irish connections, having three of his sisters married to Irish in his hometown of New York.
This was a very open and pragmatic conversation where James discussed that there was initial resistance in Ireland and that overcoming challenges was a work in progress. He put a real emphasis on proving value through performance and was pleased to announce that they have currently 28,500 independent travel advisers in the UK, and 125,000 worldwide on a written contract, with a doubling of business year on year in the UK – a trend he states will happen here too. James explained that innovation was the key to their growth strategy and that they have a strong focus on empowerment through technology and education.
I think my favourite quote of the morning was ‘Our members are technology enablers. They are fiercely entrepreneurial.’
James also highlighted that along with owning MGME and Hickory GLOBAL Partners they are now launching a partnership with Major Travel, Classic Collections and the purchase of a new sporting event and concert business that will be announced very soon. He commented that ‘this was not a spending spree, but that it enabled Inteletravel agents to have more access to the right product with vertical integration’. James also highlighted the trend for ‘moment travel’ where people are building their holidays around special moments like concerts or major sporting events.
At this point, Tara Minson, President of Inteletravel stood up to update us on technology and in-house initiatives starting with the global Launch of new InteliPerks and InteliPro, which involves an AI integration for content creation and itinerary building. Tara outlined their major investment in training and onboarding programs and ‘Dream Maker’ sessions to increase agent productivity and all initiatives for new agents to reach set commission benchmarks.
The team also discussed their plans for 2025 including a dedicated river cruise conference and cruise boot camp and exclusive partnerships and fam trips followed by their annual InteliQuest conference in Porto next September.
All in all, it seems that Inteletravel has its eyes firmly on the Irish market with realistic growth strategies in play and an outpouring of support from suppliers in the market.
