Air Canada Vacations Wraps Product Launch Tour with Massive Toronto Event

Air Canada Vacations is increasingly looking beyond the traditional seasonal vacation business, using Air Canada’s expanding global network to offer travel advisors product ranging from sun and Europe to Asia, cruises and adventure travel.

That was one of the messages from Nino Montagnese, Vice President at Air Canada Vacations, as ACV wrapped up its cross-country Product Launch tour at Universal Eventspace in Vaughan, north of Toronto.

And the trade showed up in force.

Montagnese said ACV had received approximately 1,300 RSVPs for the Toronto-area event, up from about 1,100 last year. The turnout was so large that ACV had to open the venue’s upstairs balconies to provide additional seating.

“I think what that shows us is that our industry is craving the face-to-face interaction,” Montagnese told Travel Market Report Canada.

While advisors and suppliers communicate constantly through email, text and social media, he said large-scale opportunities to meet in person are comparatively rare.

“For us, it’s important because we’re able to feature what’s new, what’s coming, and we do it by gateway.”

ACV expanded its Product Launch tour this year by adding Calgary and Quebec City, with events also held in Halifax, Edmonton, Vancouver and Montreal before concluding in the Toronto area.

Montagnese said Calgary was particularly significant as Air Canada returns with service from the market after an absence of several years.

“There’s excitement again,” he said. “There’s more choice.”

Where AC Goes, ACV is Sure to Follow

As Air Canada expands internationally, Montagnese said ACV can follow the airline into destinations that take the vacation company well beyond its traditional sun-package roots.

“For us, it’s being able to offer product across the entire Air Canada network, and not just one type of product,” he said. “It’s Asia, it’s the South Pacific, it’s South America, it’s North America, it’s all of the Caribbean. We’ve got so much product and a lot to talk about.”

The breadth is also helping ACV reduce the seasonality traditionally associated with the Canadian vacation business.

“Typically, you reduce your capacity and you just coast through the summer months,” Montagnese said. But with Europe, transborder and other Air Canada flying available to package, “we’ve been steady right through.”

For advisors, that creates considerably more opportunity to retain clients within the ACV portfolio.

“An agent can pivot from sun to a cruise, to Europe, to Asia, to South America — right around the globe with Air Canada Vacations.”

Even sun travel itself has become less seasonal, he added.

“There isn’t” really a season anymore, Montagnese said. Canadians continue travelling to Caribbean destinations during the summer because a warm Canadian summer doesn’t necessarily deliver the resort vacation experience they want.

Intrepid Partnership Just “The Beginning”

One of ACV’s more interesting recent moves is its partnership with Intrepid Travel, initially bringing eight Canadian itineraries into the vacation company’s portfolio.

Montagnese said advisors helped identify the opportunity.

“We found that there was a gap,” he said. “We offer tours everywhere, but we stopped offering tours in Canada, and our customers wanted it, both advisors and consumers.”

The initial eight itineraries won’t be the end of the partnership. Rumour has it that Morocco and Japan could be part of the next Intrepid/ACV collaboration.

“It’s the beginning of a very, very viable partnership,” Montagnese said. “There’s a lot more that’s going to come.” 

ACV used the Product Launch events to showcase several other developments:

Montagnese highlighted an exclusive partnership with The Excellence Collection and said ACV was announcing the addition of Explora Journeys to its cruise portfolio at the Vaughan event.

Together, he said, the additions reflect an effort to give advisors access to virtually every type of vacation product their clients might request.

Product was only part of the message. ACV is also preparing what Montagnese described as a significant technology announcement for its travel advisor partners.

“It’s about offering every type of product that this group needs — and offering technology,” he said. “In the coming weeks, we’ll have a big announcement on technology. So stay tuned.”

Resilience Amidst the Noise

ACV;s expansion comes against a complicated backdrop for the travel industry, with geopolitical uncertainty, rising fuel costs and destination disruptions continuing to affect travel patterns.

Montagnese pointed to the Middle East, higher fuel prices, the loss of Cuba product and the impact of Hurricane Melissa on Jamaica as examples of the challenges the industry has absorbed in just the past year.

But he said demand has proved remarkably durable.

“We are a resilient industry,” he said. “Every year, we’re faced with something. Think about it — not one year has gone by with our industry not having to face something.”

Despite those disruptions, he said, travellers continue to travel and advisors continue to find alternatives when circumstances change.

“The customer is still coming,” Montagnese said. “And these partners are booking them, and they’re able to book them into the product type that the customer wants.”

For ACV, the response to this year’s Product Launch tour offered some tangible evidence of that resilience.

“The turnout has been phenomenal, with sell-out events right across the country,” he said.