Trafalgar and Insight Vacations parent offers DMCs to third parties
The parent company of brands including Trafalgar, Insight Vacations and Uniworld Boutique River Cruises is opening up its destination management company (DMC) portfolio to third-party travel firms.
The Travel Corporation (TTC) said the Covid-19 pandemic has made it aware of the opportunity to expand by partnering with tour operators or other leisure or corporate companies looking for a DMC to run holidays and services in resort.
Partners are able to white label the product for their own programmes.
TTC owns a global network of 12 DMCs which offer holidays, local experiences, corporate travel and ancillary services. They operate across Africa, Europe, the Americas and the South Pacific and already work as ground handlers for a number of internationally recognised travel brands.
The company has created a new website, dmc.ttc.com, as well as marketing assets and training for potential partners.
Its product range includes escorted travel, river cruising and day tours as well as customised groups, yachts and small ship cruising, safari operations, conferences and events, self-drives, rail journeys, private chauffeurs, and transfer services. It also offers group trips in other languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Turkish, Spanish, German and Italian.
Specific experiences offered include a sunrise visit to Bruce Munro’s Field of Light installation at Uluru in Australia, exclusive to AAT Kings, a 4×4 off-road drive in a Land Rover in the Scottish Highlands with a safari ranger to look for red deer and golden eagles with Brendan Vacations; and dining after hours in the Vatican or learning to flamenco dance with TTC Europe & UK.
TTC president Gavin Tollman, who is overseeing the DMC project, said: “During the uncertainty of the pandemic, we spoke to a number of our partners who were looking for an operational solution with the quality, knowledge, infrastructure, consistency and financial resilience to deliver on the ground in a new post-pandemic world – but they were hitherto unaware of the depth and breadth of TTC’s destination management portfolio.
“They were excited when they realised we could provide that solution across multiple destinations worldwide.
“By launching a dedicated website and a series of new tools outlining the extent of our offering, and the financial strength that supports it, we hope to be able to present this hassle-free and risk-free opportunity to a wider range of leisure and corporate travel businesses.”
TTC’s DMC brands include AAT Kings in Australia and New Zealand, Siva Travel in Greece and the Greek islands, Brendan Vacations in Ireland and Scotland, TTC’s operations all across Europe, UK and the Eastern Mediterranean, Destination America in the US, Canada and Latin America, and a number of Africa specialists such as Cullinan, Thompsons and Grosvenor Tours, which operate across Africa. In addition to working with the 12 in-destination DMCs, companies would also have access to support from TTC’s in-market teams across 40 offices worldwide.
TTC is hopeful operators will be attracted to work with its fully-owned DMCs because of the group’s financial stability during its 101 years in travel, its expertise and levels of service delivery. The group said it also takes on the risk of currency fluctuation by allowing operator partners to pay in their own currency instead of the currency in destination, as would be the case if working with many smaller ground handlers.
Earlier in the pandemic, TTC revealed its officially-audited unencumbered fixed assets are in excess of $300,000,000 thanks to its ownership of the luxury Red Carnation Hotel collection, information it shared in order to provide partners and agents with the reassurance that TTC is highly solvent, operationally stable and that investments are safe.
