What's Next for TravelBound?

James Phillips became president of TravelBound— GTA’s (Gulliver Travel Associates) U.S. retail-facing brand—in October 2015. He joined GTA during 2010 as commercial director global hotel chains.

Following GTA’s acquisition by Kuoni in 2012, Phillips was appointed vice president of hotel sourcing in Africa and the Middle East and later served as vice president of sourcing for the Americas.

As GTA awaits regulatory approval to merge with Hotelbeds, we sat with Phillips to discuss how the deal might impact travel agents. He also provided details on how TravelBound’s business fared in 2017, noting that Asia and domestic travel were the company’s two strongest sellers.

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AgentAtHome: What can you tell our readers about the prospective merger of GTA and Hotelbeds?

James Phillips: The Hotelbeds Group is known for Bedsonline, its retail brand. We are waiting for the authorities to do their due diligence. We hope that once they have done that we’ll be able to close the deal. So it’s a very exciting opportunity, but we’re not there yet.

“We started the year incredibly strong in terms of bookings. We then saw a slight tapering off in the second quarter. Then it picked up again, and now we’re actually sitting on a very strong fourth quarter.”

GTA turns over $1 billion a year. Hotelbeds Group is also a large company. And they recently closed their deal with a company called Tourico. We’ll be the third partner in that matrix and the largest wholesale intermediary in the industry.

The good news is that the value proposition will become enhanced because we can take the best of all of those entities to go to market with an improved proposition. In a nutshell, GTA/TravelBound has a great hotel and services contracting model. Tourico is known for its outstanding technology and Hotelbeds for its strength in the resort space. Because the deal is not yet closed, for now, we are operating as entirely separate, independent entities.

AAH: What benefits will TravelBound Reap from the merger?

JP: Having access to Tourico’s technology is a huge opportunity.

Hotelbeds has been extremely strong in the resort space, and GTA has been very strong in terms of hotel buying, particularly in the urban leisure space in terms of big gateway cities and secondary destinations. So it’s a really nice opportunity. We are hoping that [the merger] will close and we can really start the heavy lifting of bringing the companies together.

AAH: What kind of impact could the Tourico technology have on business practices?

JP: With Tourico’s technology and enhanced content—particularly in the resort space—and the management know-how, it means that we’ll both do a few things differently and better, which is the purpose of the merger.

For the travel agent, it’s business as usual for now. In the future, travel agents will have an expanded range of what can be purchased from TravelBound. We’re also looking to launch different technology processes into the market.

Education will be a big focus in terms of how we assist travel agents in selling different destinations they are not particularly familiar with, as well as how we support them in their business. [It’s through those types of efforts where] we will create value in this opportunity. But in the meantime, it’s business as usual.

READ MORE: New TravelBound President Plans Radical Changes

How has business been for TravelBound in 2017?

Business has been very good. We’re ahead of budget, which is very good. We’re very pleased about that. We’re really just looking forward to our forthcoming transactions with Hotelbeds and Tourico coming to a close.

In particular, we did very well in Asia. We’ve seen domestic business increase a lot as well, which accounted for a strong summer. Since last year we’ve seen a larger proportion of bookings stay domestic, which is interesting. Southern Europe has been extremely strong. Northern Europe has been a bit tougher. France particularly has been quite difficult this year. The U.K. has slowed as well.

We started the year incredibly strong in terms of bookings. We then saw a slight tapering off in the second quarter. Then it picked up again, and now we’re actually sitting on a very strong fourth quarter.