Celebrating its 10-year anniversary, Global Travel Marketplace (GTM) took place from Thursday, July 28 to Saturday, July 30 at The Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Florida.
This event brings together top-level travel consultants and top suppliers from around the world. It’s a gathering of more than 300 industry professionals that many here call “powerful,” “life-changing,” and “the best event ever.”
To be eligible to participate, travel consultants must meet specific criteria — the main one being that they must have at least $1 million in annual individual revenue or be a multi-million dollar agency owner.
Held at Northstar Travel Group, the GTM event features two days of one-on-one appointments where suppliers meet at the travel consultant’s table for a six-minute chat. It is designed for both parties to help each other grow their business.
In addition, suppliers buy in to host board presentations where they get 30 minutes to showcase their brand and answer any questions from advisors.
“For a decade, we’ve seen immediate return on investment for our participating suppliers and advisors, and this year again, business was booked onsite during our more than 7,000 in-person appointments,” said Alicia Evanko-Lewis, Executive Vice President, Travel Group Global Events , Northstar Travel Group. “GTM is professionals who meet professionals and help their company move forward. We are so happy to celebrate this GTM milestone coupled with the travel boom our industry is currently going through.”
Making Connections
To help break the ice and allow attendees to meet new people, everyone was given half a photo and the task of finding their match. Sponsored by Tourism Australia, the matchmaker game brought advisors and suppliers together in a fun way.
The incentive to win a case of wine from Australia by finding your match and posting a photo on social media made contestants rush to find their match before time ran out. On the same subject : DBEDT Press Release: SMALL BUSINESS REGULATORY REVIEW BOARD ELECTS 2021-2022 OFFICERS.
Relationships are everything in the travel industry.
Consultants and suppliers here understand the importance of coming together, especially given the circumstances of the past two years.
“Whether it’s networking with my colleagues, which I love because you learn so much from people [or] the relationships you build with some suppliers, it’s great,” said Travel Experience’s Phyllis Evenson. “And in this climate, how things have changed, it’s nice to reconnect with the suppliers you’ve already met. So there’s just so many levels, it’s networking [and] it’s relationship building.”
Michael Gelber, CEO of IWorld of Travel, noted how important GTM is in making new, meaningful connections for him and his company.
“In this industry, one of the things I learned from my father is that you want to have relationships first and then do business, and I think that’s the greatest value of what you get here [at GTM]. You meet people you want to have a relationship with. These are friends, and from there those friendships become business, and it’s about good business and good relationships. It’s not about selling the most, being the most [or] being the biggest, it’s about doing the right thing and not always being focused on you, but on us together. It’s really, really worth it.”
Growing the Brand
The one-on-one appointments combined with the boardroom presentations help both consultants and suppliers to reach new heights for their brands. See the article : Newly discovered malware hijacks Facebook Business accounts.
“I actually just started my business during COVID,” said Shannon Kittner, owner of Main Street and Beyond Travel Company. “I was promoting what was open, which was Disney World. Now that everything else is open, I’m so excited to be partnering with all these clients I’ve built over the years to promote all these other incredible destinations and suppliers I’m learning about. So all this knowledge that I’m gaining has been incredible.”
Monday Evans, owner of Such a Time as This, a travel agency, and member of the GTM Advisory Board, credits this event as the inspiration for her to grow from selling mostly one type of travel to selling the world now.
“It’s the best event in the industry,” Evans said. “It provides everything I need to grow my business, diversify, and in fact this is my third GTM and it has just been the catalyst for change in my business. I changed my company name because of GTM and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here and now.”
Before going to GTM years ago, Evans said nearly 80% of her company sold Disney. Following the event and the rebranding of her agency to sell more of the world, Evans said Disney makes up just under 40% of her business. “I’m selling even more from Disney now than before, but I’m growing everywhere else,” Evans said.
Stephanie Pickles acquired her company Pickles Vacations and recently launched her own guest agency, Pickles Travel Network, with more than 80 advisors in just two months.
“This helps tremendously,” Pickles said when asked how attending GTM will benefit her new endeavor to own a host agency. “I just come here and talk to [suppliers], half of the people I’ve talked to so far are going to do live training with us on a regular basis. I think it’s really going to help with the relationships between each of the suppliers and all of the Pickles Travel Network agents. I look forward to working with these people. I think I have found some suppliers that we will be working with for many, many years to come.”
For the suppliers who sponsor a boardroom, they can go deeper with the advisors on what they have to offer.
“It gives you the ability to delve deeper into your policies, updates and changes,” said Shelly Williams, Business Development Manager at ALG Vacations. “Everything has changed since the pandemic, so it’s really great to have that little bit of extra time than just that one-on-one. The agents have been great here.”
Consultants felt the same way, as Travel Clique’s Angela Jennings noted that having her colleagues with her has led to a better environment for everyone.
“The boardroom presentations were also great,” Jennings said. “I like that there are multiple advisors in the room…sometimes they come up with questions that I might not have thought of or vice versa, so it’s great that you get different perspectives from the agents in the room on the same presentation. A lot of the consultants in the room have experience with the suppliers, so they also give their feedback and say, ‘yes, work with this supplier, they’re great, I’ve had a great experience’ and so on and so forth, so that’s also a plus.”
Additional Highlights
The welcome reception on Thursday was sponsored by Visit Lauderdale. Read also : Femme Fire Books opens its first store in Riverside. It was hosted in the Diplomat Landing across the street.
The beautiful outdoor setting was the start of a weekend of great networking.
Breakfast was sponsored by Virgin Voyages on Friday, which ended with kids crashing the presentation to protest they can’t sail on the exclusive adults-only cruise line.
Too funny. Children interrupted the @VirginVoyages presentation on Global Travel Marketplace this morning to protest that they are not allowed to sail on adult-only cruise ships. #gtmelite pic.twitter.com/gGv0l3eIiV
Friday lunch was sponsored by Seabourn, featuring a presentation on the new Seabourn Venture vessel. The video of Seabourn’s first purpose-built ultra-luxury expedition vessel stunned consultants, and many continued to talk about it all weekend.
The Friday reception was sponsored by Princess Cruises. The travel industry loves a good party and the Princess Cruises team makes sure you have an epic evening. (Editor’s Note: Let me know I was the first to dance!)
The Saturday breakfast was sponsored by Tourism New Zealand and Air New Zealand, including the throwing of T-shirts from the stage to the entire dining room.
Saturday lunch was sponsored by Visit Anchorage and Alaska Railroad, where one lucky advisor won a FAM trip to Anchorage, Alaska!
GTM 2023 will be held May 4-6, 2023 at the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Florida. Click here to learn more about attending GTM in 2023 or its sister event GTM West.
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