ITTN’s Katie Doyle attended the Travel Counsellors 2026 Conference that took place over Thursday and Friday last week in the beautiful setting of Cork’s Fota Island Resort, where Travel Counsellors had two days of business sessions alongside supplier networking with key industry partners.
The first day of the conference began after a lovely buffet lunch, sponsored jointly by Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean. Bernie Whelan, Business Development Manager, paid huge respect to Cathy Burke, Managing Director of Travel Counsellors Ireland. After a rough week for travel agents nationwide and internationally, Whelan said of Burke that she’s the best woman in the business when going through a crisis. After the Middle East conflict erupted last weekend, Cathy was ringing contacts and supporting counsellors across the country as they made sure that their customers were looked after and accounted for as the week went on.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Your Story, Our Journey” reflecting the individual paths to travel that makes each TC unique in their varied offering, combined with the Travel Counsellor offering of an established business reputation, 24 hour support line, a community of travel experts and a corporate team there to assist them at every turn. The journey of the company, which has grown from strength to strength year on year, is now in its twenty-first year of business – a huge testament to Cathy and the entire TC team.
Headline sponsors, Valerie Murphy of Celebrity Cruises and Jennifer Callister of Royal Caribbean began the conference reflecting on the exciting opportunities coming up in their respective cruise lines in the next year and beyond. After the much anticipated launch of Xcel late last year, Celebrity is gearing up for its new season of river cruising and the exciting announcement of Celebrity Xcite. There’s lots to get customers excited about with Royal Caribbean too whether it’s the launch of their Perfect Day offering in Mexico or their new Royal Beach Club in Santorini – guests can now enjoy the much-loved CocoCay experience outside of the Bahamas!
As the conference continued, Bernie and Cathy paid tribute to the milestones the company’s travel counsellors have achieved in the past twenty-one years. Susan Ryan and Melanie Cahill are both celebrating ten years as TCs, while Kate Moore and Chris Ryan are in their fifteenth year of business. Four TCs in Rosemary Chawke, Catherine Maguire, Sarah McCarthy and Donna Olohan are celebrating an incredible twenty years of being travel counsellors – a stunning achievement demonstrative of the opportunities that lie in the company. Other TCs were celebrated too, with John Appleby being awarded New to Gold, alongside Rob Kiernan and Katherine Prior. Sarah McCarthy won the Customer for Life award while Eleanor Roche won the New Business Champion, and the TC Journeys winner was Mandy Walsh. Lorraine Lawless and Michael Kelly were also commended for their dedication to customer service!
Travel Counsellors Ireland are a thriving business in the travel industry in Ireland, reporting a total sales of 57 million euros in the past twelve months. Corporate makes up 19% of their overall business while cruise accounts for 12.5%. Bookings are up 5% year on year while medium and long haul, alongside Phenix and TC Packages, continue to dominate leisure sales. With the introduction of new technology in the coming weeks, the company’s current TC co-pilot feature has received a total of 14,000 messages since its launch with over 60% of TCs using the co-pilot feature every day.
A representative from the All-Ireland Business Foundation commended TCs Ireland for achieving the AIBF All-Stars accreditation, back-to-back in the past two years. The Travel Company of the Year award, which TCs Ireland has achieved in 2026 and 2025, is given to businesses that sustain high-standards and continue to meet the levels of performance, trust and customer centricity that defines an award-winning Irish business.
In the afternoon sessions, Travel Counsellors partook in panel discussions – from the corporate to the leisure sides of the business – sharing their tips and inspiration for landing big clientele into the business, supporting large to medium accounts and growing their individual brands through personal branding, social media, networking and more.
Carrie Day, Business Development Manager for Riviera Cruises in Ireland, took the stage to end Thursday’s sessions, thanking the crowd of TCs for their continued support of the river cruise brand in the market. The welcome dinner which followed in the Niblicks Function Room of Fota Island Resort gathered suppliers and travel counsellors alike to reflect on a brilliant day of networking and learning as they looked forward to Friday’s festivities.
