TRAVELSAVERS Canada Hosts Biggest-Ever ‘Dine & Discover’ Evening

With 140 member advisors, 30 suppliers and five TRAVELSAVERS Canada team members in the room, SVP and General Manager Jane Clementino was feeling pretty good. So good that she shared an aspirational goal.

“I’m not retiring until we hit $1 billion (in annual member sales),” the 37-year industry veteran vowed.

It’s a big number, and one that’s a little hard to pin down, given that the TRAVELSAVERS Canada consortium and parent American Marketing Group are privately-held companies owned by the Mazza family. And while Clementino acknowledged that achieving the figure will require a “more than doubling” of sales, she said with current trends it may come sooner than one might expect.

This year’s Toronto edition of the TRAVELSAVERS Canada ‘Dine & Discover’ evenings was the largest ever – including those held by U.S. TRAVELSAVERS colleagues south of the border. A similar event was held in Vancouver earlier this month and another will follow in Quebec City.

While TRAVELSAVERS in the U.S. was created by Rick Mazza 56 years ago, TRAVELSAVERS Canada is celebrating a quarter century in business in 2025. The company signed up just 17 agency members in the first year of the millennium, and now boasts 330 agencies across the country. 

Clementino brought to the company a strong history of accomplishment in sales, supplier and account management – and a high profile in the industry — when she joined in 2022. It has been a busy and productive three years since that date.

2023 saw the debut of the ‘Dine & Discover’ education and networking events, designed to encourage stronger relationships between advisors and suppliers and the exchange of promotions and insights to share with clients.

In 2024, the KORE travel advisor education program was introduced to Canada. It is designed to attract newcomers to the industry and provide them with the thorough training they need to be successful travel advisors and business owners.

Also in 2024, TRAVELSAVERS Canada launched the Breakaway program to encourage independent contractors to start their own agencies with the goals of strengthening their independence, control and profits.

“We were very successful in the U.S. for more than 30 years before we came into Canada with the same spirit and family values – and it worked,” said Clementino. “The philosophy is that you run your business and we work for you.”

She said that as a multi-generational family business, TRAVELSAVERS is in it for the “long play,” and is loyal both to its members and to preferred suppliers.

“I’ve never seen us remove a supplier, and we don’t add a lot of them either, so we don’t dilute the power of our sales. Suppliers know we will stay with them, and they respond with loyalty too.”

Prior to the event, TRAVELSAVERS Canada facilitated a discussion between trade media members and a diverse group of members. We’ll have a story on that interesting conversation next week.

Clementino says sales are currently “a little soft” for new, close-in bookings throughout the industry, as Canadians deal with economic uncertainty. Sales to U.S. destinations are down a dramatic 35% — and even worse for Las Vegas ats 38% in the red. But river and ocean cruising remain strong, there’s lots of group travel and advance ITC sales are good too.

The dress code for the evening was not dictated, but there were a whole lot of Toronto Blue Jays jerseys visible as the event coincided with Game 6 of the World Series. Reading the room (and with several major fans on the TRAVELSAVERS Canada team), dinner service was sped up so members and suppliers could get somewhere to watch the game.

Elizabeth Grundon has been with TRAVELSAVERS Canada for more than 23 years and is the face of the company to many long-time travel advisors. She was recently promoted to the role of Director of Professional Development, and was honoured by Clementino with a presentation during the event.