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Home-based agents punch above their weight in the industry award stakes

13 MAY: Bigger, longer-established agency networks continue to dominate annual industry award presentations.

But data collated by TravelManagers shows that its home-based personal travel managers (PTMs) are punching above their weight.

Mandy Scotney

Mandy Scotney.

Since 2009, when its PTMs were first nominated for industry awards, they’ve been finalists 23 times - resulting in 17 awards, including Travel Weekly’s ‘Travel Agent of the Year’ title for 2011.

On several occasions, the group has produced more finalists than giants like Flight Centre and Harvey World Travel.

TravelManagers executive general manager Mandy Scotney believes it has a lot to do with the group’s business philosophy.

"Most of our PTMs have solid consulting backgrounds when they join us", she says

"Our business model then encourages them to hone those skills to expand their client base and develop long-term relationships with those clients.

"They’re not in the business of waiting for walk-in traffic which is here today and gone tomorrow".

Some of the latest TravelManagers award-winners explain in Travel Monitor interviews how they run their businesses. Click here to read their comments.

 
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News in Brief for 22 May

GREEK CANCELLATIONS Europe low-fare carrier Ryanair has reportedly confirmed that it will cut 82 flights a week to the Greek holiday islands of Rhodes and Kos after local authorities allegedly failed to honour a joint summer marketing campaign with the airline.

STANSTED STRIKE Baggage handlers at London’s Stansted airport plan a series of strikes from this weekend after negotiations on shift changes broke down. The 150 workers are employed by Swissport, which handles baggage for Ryanair and a number of UK holiday airlines.

AIRLINE DENIES CUTS Air France-KLM denied plans to cut 5,000 jobs by 2015 through a voluntary redundancy plan, as reported by French daily Le Figaro. "For the moment there are absolutely no negotiations about possible job cuts, these are just rumours," a spokeswoman told reporters.

MEXICAN REVIVAL? Mexicana Airlines, which suspended flights for financial reasons in August 2010, may re-launch operations next month after Spanish hotel and air transport group Med Atlantica acquired 95% of the bankrupt carrier’s shares.

THAI SACKING The board of Thai Airways is reported to have sacked the airline’s chairman, with a spokesman saying he was "unable to work in unity with the strategy committee".