The Travel Counsellors Ireland 20th Annual Conference – 20 Beyond – kicked off in Druid’s Glen Hotel & Golf Resort on Thursday morning with delicious coffee sponsored by JetBlue. A total of 70 Travel Counsellors, along with 11 TC partners and spouses, 2 TC assistants, and 10 Head Office staff, gathered in sunny Wicklow. They will be joined by 73 delegates from 56 business partners over the coming days.
In attendance this year are 14 cruise lines, 11 airlines 5 soft adventure touring operators, 8 tourist boards, 2 DMCs and 7 GDS/ technology, insurance and car rental companies. From the UK Venus Office is Sales Director, Jim Eastwood, Commercial Director, Alex Gavalda, Head of Customer & Performance Marketing, Steve Hawker, and Travel Counsellors Engagement Director, Karen Morris.
The afternoon session kicked off with a surprise tribute, brimming with emotion, for Cathy Burke who stepped in to set up operations in Ireland 20 years ago. Tear jerking video tributes poured in from Travel Counsellors global senior management – including Steve Byrne, Travel Counsellors CEO and Mladen Lukic TC South Africa’s MD, as well as Cathy’s family in Australia and her proud husband, Jack. Cathy was presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers onstage, while the room took to their feet to give her a standing ovation.
Roles were reversed when Cathy Burke, Ciara MacConnell and Lorraine Lawless surprised Bernie Whelan with a beautiful bouquet and book filled with messages of gratitude and thanks from Irish TCs for her 15 years of dedication to Travel Counsellors.
The celebrations and surprises continued as Cathy Burke gave praise to those TCs celebrating their own milestones. Starting with those who joined Travel Counsellors 10 Years ago, which includes Sinead Lonergan, Lorraine Wynne, Sharon Tiernan-Murphy and Maeve Doherty. Margaret Kelly and Martina Hayden are also celebrating their 15-year anniversaries, while Lorraine Lawless, Mary Foyle, Kathy O’Sullivan, Sue Cahill, Sherry Meagle and Gail Buckley were commended for their amazing 20 years with Travel Counsellors! Sarah Appleton was also presented with a bottle of champagne for being Ireland’s newest Gold Travel Counsellor, which is a huge accomplishment.
The last surprise of the day came in the form of Cathy Burke paying tribute to Head Office colleague Caitriona Kelleher, TC Business Development Coach, who has been with Cathy since the start of operations in Ireland and has helped grow and shape the business into what it is today.
After the tears were wiped away, it was time for the business update where Cathy advised that TC Ireland sales are up 7% on last year, with cruise bookings up an impressive 8.6% and premium leisure sales up 13%. DMC performance from TC Ireland has increased by a massive 36%.
Long haul booking for Travel Counsellors increased by 27%, with Australia and New Zealand being the biggest increase with 56% growth year on year, and the company has seen over 33% growth in bookings from the over 55’s.
Cathy was delighted to announced that the Breakthrough Cancer Research Charity Partnership will be continuing in 2025 with over €10k raised already by TCs.
Thursday’s lunch sponsors, MSC and Explora Journeys, were invited to give a short presentation to the TCs with some company updates. MSC’s Head of Sales, Suzanne Rowe, spoke briefly about their latest addition to the fleet – MSC World America – who boasts some new additions to the World Class ships, such as The Cliff Hanger, The Comedy Club, The Harbour, Family Aventura, Sports Bar and Paxos Greek Restaurant. World America will be sailing around the Caribbean on 7- and 14-night itineraries from April to October 2025, from Miami. Jenny Wade, Explora Journeys’ Business Relationship Lead, was up next, advising Explora III will be setting sail in 2026, but is on sale now. Instead of offering cruises, they offer ‘ocean journeys’ and instead of itineraries, they offer ‘journeys’ to appeal to all types of customers.
The first speaker in the Thursday afternoon sessions was Ciara Conlon on Leading with Impact who spoke about the importance of believing in yourself. After a quick tea and coffee break, Travel Counsellors Sales Director Jim Eastwood, was up next. Jim gave a rousing speech about embracing the technology that Travel Counsellors have and continue to invest in and asked some top performing TCs to give their own insights and advice to all attendees.
Last up from Travel Counsellors, was Steve Hawker, Head of Customer & Performance Marketing, based in the Manchester head office. Steve spoke passionately about the customer journey and how TC’s can keep their customers engaged using the content, emails and other tools available to Travel Counsellors, emphasising the importance of social media and being ‘real’ to keep customers and followers engaged!
To finish off the day, Jennifer Callister, Head of Ireland at Royal Caribbean, sponsor of Thursday evenings dinner, took to the stage to give an uplifting update on the latest developments at Royal Caribbean which include the launch of the Star of the Seas next August, sailing out of Orlando, as well as Legend of the Seas which will arrive in 2026. Legend is the third Icon Class ship which will accommodate 7,600 guests, boasts 20 decks and is the fourth ship in the fleet powered by LNG.
Stay tuned for more updates from Travel Counsellors 20th Annual Conference over the coming days on ITTN.ie and our social media channels!
