TMP Debuts in Calgary, Celebrating the Resilience of Alberta’s Travel Community

Travel Market Place is carving a new history in Alberta.

TMR welcomed 240 travel advisors, and another 100 supplier partners, to its Travel Market Place (TMP) debut in Calgary on Tuesday, the first of two days of learning, networking, and celebrating Alberta’s travel community.

The sold-out event is the first time that TMP has been hosted in Calgary and marks the start of the largest travel industry conference in the province.

“This has been a long time coming for our team,” TMR SVP and publisher Brian Israel told attendees during the opening ceremony. “We’ve been in Toronto going on 11 years and in Vancouver going on 8. We finally asked ourselves, ‘What about Alberta? What about Calgary?’ So here we are.”

“This is a magic moment of connection with one another, and it starts right now,” Emcee Geraldine Ree said.

Keynote kickoff

As part of Tuesday’s kickoff, Oceania’s director of sales for Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest Cathy Denroche delivered a keynote address aimed at celebrating the resilience of Albertans.

“The first thing I want to talk to you about is resilience, specifically, Alberta’s resilience,” she said.

Whether it was the Fort McMurray Wildfire in 2016, the huge flooding in May and June in Calgary in 2019, or the recent fires in Banff National Park, Alberta is a region that has long dealt with tragedy, but also a region that has picked itself up time and time again, she said. That resilience is reflected doubly in Alberta’s travel agency community.

“When I think of resilience, we are probably the most resilient industry in the world,” Denroche said. “We have determinations as Albertans and as Canadians. We do not give up when the going gets tough.”

Going forward, it’s important for advisors to recognize the role they plan for their clients, she added. It’s about a feeling as opposed to something you can see or touch. It’s about connecting on a level deeper than words or emails.

“It is all a matter of attitude. It is all a matter of perspective. It is not what we can see or touch, it’s how we feel. When we’re talking to our clients, we have got to be able to feel how they’re feeling and how they’re doing,” she said.

“You are magic in the business – we are the magic industry – we help people travel everywhere in the world,” she added.

Inspiring owners

In a pre-conference session on Monday, aimed specifically at owners, Geraldine Ree took owners through her “One Human at a Time” exercise, to better focus team leaders on how they can not only build a team, but fit different personalities into it.

The most pressing issue for owners, according to Ree, is difficulty finding new talent—66% of owners say its hard or very hard to find good people, according to industry surveys. A growing segment of ICs—in four decades, the industry has shifted from majority employees to now 70% ICs—has also created friction for those wanting to grow their team.

“I call this the era of independence,” she said.

One issue, Ree said, is that owners say new hires or new ICs seem like they are only in it for the perks. But that shouldn’t be a negative.

“We are all in this for the perks,” she said. “You need to find people who are more interested in making other people’s dreams come true than their own travel.”

Ree also spoke about some owners being paralyzed by inspiration and not moving onto action. It’s important to recognize that hangup, she said, because that’s the first step in doing something about it. That starts with goal setting.

“Month after month I would meet with owners who were inspired to act but wouldn’t do what they’d say they would do. I had to help owners embrace why they are saying yes but not doing it.”

Setting a smaller goal is also a start to reverse that pattern of behavior. “Set a small goal. Find out what is the most important thing and start at the beginning.

Finally, Ree looked ahead to the massive opportunity for the industry. According to ACTA, 30,000 advisors were lost during the pandemic, no small number. While the industry has recovered somewhat, there’s still a lack of advisors for a growing traveling population. There’s also new technology that’s only accelerating demand.

“Complex travel is in demand and A.I. is accelerating, not killing, that demand,” she said.