Host Agency Leaders Star in C-A-T Spotlight Panel (June 2006 - Travel Trade)
June 2006 - Supplement to Travel Trade
Travel Trade’s 24th annual CRUISE-A-THON in Vancouver this month featured the first Host agency spotlight panel in what is expected to become a featured highlight at the semi-annual agent gatherings hosted by Travel Trade in the future.
The panel presented an opportunity for Home Based agents and other Independent Contractors to identify the faces, voices and program highlights of 20 competing leaders of the growing Host agency sector of the retail industry. The large field of Host agency executives - as crowded and competitive as the 20 entrants in the recent Kentucky Derby - seized the chance to display their points of differentiation to a general session audience of potential members.
Moderator Joel M. Abels, editor and publisher of Travel Trade, introduced the panelists with a theme he has shared with Home Based agents in recent editorials.
“If you are Home Based and do not belong to a Host agency you are crazy,” he said. “You are probably leaving about $4,000 to $5,000 in commissions on the table each year.”
Abels noted that the start of a Host spotlight panel was comparable to a panel of consortium executives launched at C-A-T 20 years ago to familiarize retailers with their growing number of choices in agency group affiliations.
Andi McClure-Mysza, the president of Montrose Travel, a Los Angeles-based Host agency, said her debt-free, profitable company has the financial support to help its independent agencies be successful.”Our program is inclusive and affordable,” said the Montrose president. She added that the company offers an extensive agent Web site with an assortment of marketing tools.
“We are a corporate and leisure group offering value in one Host to experienced and inexperience agents. Some of our Independent Contractors have been with us for 20 years,” McClure-Mysza said.
