Travel Leaders Group Brings Focus on Hotels

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Travel Leaders Group announced that it is incorporating all initiatives involving the lodging sector into its Hotel Division, which is headed by Senior Vice President Erick Rodriguez.

The increased focus on hotels comes after the Group identified the potential for significant growth that its more than 40,000 travel agents are poised to deliver beyond their current $2 billion in annual hotel sales.

By the end of this year, the Hotel Division staff will be increased from 16 to more than 40 across supply, demand, marketing, and technology areas. The move is designed to better support agents' hotel sales growth, including through the creation of more curated experiences.

"Our long-range strategy for further elevating the customer experience that our extraordinary travel agents deliver includes a particular focus on hotels," said Ninan Chacko, CTC, CEO of the Travel Leaders Group.

"We recognize that there is tremendous potential in this segment, ranging from increasing hotel attachment rates for existing reservations to enabling our agents to deliver exceptional curated hotel offerings that can't be found elsewhere," he said. "In fact, we're prepared to invest significantly to elevate this particular traveler experience."

Rodriguez said that placing all of Travel Leaders' hotel initiatives under one roof-including its Worldwide Hotel Program and Select Hotels & Resorts-will provide the opportunity to ensure that all efforts will be coordinated for maximum benefit for both agents and their clients.

"We will focus on creating even tighter relationships with hoteliers, not only at the chain level, but also directly with specific properties that are most popular among our agents' clients," Rodriguez said.

"Our goal is to not only have the best available rates, but also generate and curate new lifestyle content that our agents can offer their customers, while also appealing to DIY consumers who hadn't previously understood the distinct value our agents could provide."

The Travel Leaders Group Hotel Division team now includes:

• Supply (Supplier Relations) - Travel Leaders Group Vice President Christina Gambini will lead the team responsible for Select Hotels & Resorts, Worldwide Hotel Program and all other unique content. She previously led the efforts for Select Hotels & Resorts.
• Demand (Agent Engagement) - Travel Leaders Group Vice President Mai Meyaart will create and lead a new team responsible for demand generation of the Hotel Division's offerings, developing point-of-sale strategies and platforms as well as agent education and loyalty initiatives. Meyaart previously developed and led the Worldwide Hotel Program.
• Marketing - This team will be responsible for marketing each of the Hotel Division's unique offerings to Travel Leaders' agents, as well as to hotel chains and hoteliers, and consumers.
• Technology - The team will develop technology to seamlessly integrate with the Hotel Division's internal platforms.

A critical component of these efforts will be devoted to supporting and interacting with Travel Leaders agents, said Rodriguez.

"That means feet on the street, meeting with agencies and agents with educational programs, FAMS, incentives and next gen booking solutions that put their needs first," he added. "We are keen to deliver on the enormous promise our Hotel Division can give our agents."

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