Headquarter Happenings: Avoya Raises Commission Split, Adds Live “Just Booked” Leads

Never one to sit on their laurels, the leadership team at Avoya Travel takes great pride in making significant announcements at every annual conference, and this year’s show was no different.

Nearly two weeks back from this year’s conference, which saw more than 550 independent advisors sail onboard Norwegian Joy from Quebec City to New York City, Jeff Anderson, Co-CEO and Phil Cappelli, chief sales officer, hopped on a virtual press conference to let the press know what’s new.

“We are really big on making some substantial changes out in the industry, not just inside of our organization,” Anderson said. “We think that the industry as a whole is ready for the next step of improvement for the way that Host agencies and independent contractors and suppliers and travelers all work together.”

“We’ve made some changes and some adjustments that are positioning ourselves not just for this year but for years to come,” Cappelli added.

Higher commission split

Last year Avoya introduced Elite 100, an opt-in program that independent agencies could join for an extra fee that pays them 100% of the commission on bookings with preferred suppliers that they bring in on their own. The commission for bookings that result from Avoya-fed Live Leads remained the same, until now.

“Now, we’ve upped that,” Cappelli said, speaking of the all-new Premier Commission Program. “It’s up to 65% more higher commission splits on Avoya Live Leads in ’25.”

Though at first glance, the commission split on these bookings still looks low, especially when compared to the split for non-Avoya Live Leads bookings, Anderson stressed, they lead to more money in advisors’ pockets.

“A high percentage of a low dollar amount is not very meaningful but even a low percentage of a high dollar amount can be very meaningful… when you take the premium traveler that independent contractors bring (ie non-Avoya leads), the value of Avoya leads that we bring to the table is in many cases 75% to 100% more… what matters more is how much commission is actually ending up in the pocket of these independent agencies”

He added, Avoya Leads are how the Host’s top producers are making “hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.”

Avoya “Live Bookings”

Well-known for its Live Leads, Avoya is taking the concept a step further and providing advisors with already booked clients.

“We challenged ourselves and said, what’s something even more valuable that we could generate?” Anderson said.

Avoya Live bookings is a consumer booking engine that can be used by both IA clients (those that IAs bring to their business) and Avoya clients (those created by Avoya Live Leads).

For IA clients, advisors can provide them the link and they can book a cruise whenever they want without their advisor doing it for them and the advisor gets the commission for it. (If the advisor is a member of Elite 100, they’ll get 100% of the commission.)

For Avoya clients that have never worked with an Avoya agency before, bookings will be distributed to independent agencies within the network and Avoya will share the commission. (The commission structure will be different than with Live Leads since the sale has already been completed.) The Host uses a patented algorithm to determine which agencies receive the booking (same with Live Leads), based on a variety of criteria including performance metrics.

“We are handing out every one of the online bookings to an independent agency. They’ll earn a split of the commission. They’ll work with that customer going forward, and they’ll be able to keep the relationship with that customer throughout the course of their time, for this booking and subsequent booking,” Anderson explained. “It’s guaranteed commission.”

“We think this is a game changer for the industry and it shifts the expectations of what every independent contractor out there deserves in a modern and fast-paced, changing world,” he added.

Part of the reason to hand the bookings over to an agency is so that someone is servicing those clients, Cappelli said.

“Tying the advisor into the process makes it a better experience for that customer,” he said. “This gives the advisor the opportunity to look at that booking, talk it through with them, and maybe upsell them to something else, add air, add insurance, hotels. We like the way we have it set up, get the booking started and then turn it over to a pro that can help finalize everything.”

The booking engine, which was built entirely in house and has been in beta testing with a select group of advisors since the end of August, has already produced bookings, with the largest so far, a $13,000 booking that was essentially hand-delivered to one of the participating advisors. In total, the booking engine has so far driven more than $600,000 worth of revenue.

“The world is going more to online,” Cappelli said. “It’s been happening for decades and it’s going to continue to happen and we want to make sure that we’re there, but we’re doing it in a way the Avoya way, which is including advisors…”

Avoya Live Bookings is only available for cruise bookings and so far, has all the major cruise lines included, with efforts underway to expand its inventory.

Seeking experienced advisors

After several years of focusing on bringing in new-to-industry advisors through its Avoya Academy program, Avoya is now putting some muscle behind recruiting experienced advisors.

“We appreciate that to help our topline numbers [we need] to bring in some real experienced people that can get us to better and better deals with out partners. We feel like we’ve got to be in both,” Cappelli said.

For a limited time starting Oct. 22, the Host is opening up 60 slots for its Elite 100 program for $399/month. Members will get paid 100% commission on any and all business that they bring to the table, as well as a $5,000 Quick Start incentive.

“We’re trying to attract the best of the best,” Cappelli said.

2024 milestones

With just two and a half months left in 2024, Anderson shared a few milestones for the year.

First, for the first time, Avoya surpassed 2,000 members and currently stands at 2,100 independent agencies (IAs).

By the end of the year, those 2,100 IAs will have done $600 million in total transaction value.

IA commissions for the year are up 32% year to date. Even better, IA commissions for members of Elite 100 are up 44% year to date.

Additionally, the net promoter score (NPS) for Avoya – as rated by its members – stands at 84, while the NPS – as rated by travelers who use Avoya-member advisors – stands at 92. (For comparison, the NPS for Apple is 61 and for Starbucks its 77.)

“Those are exceptional numbers that we are very focused on keeping as high as they are,” Anderson. “When the numbers are this high, we have to be incredibly innovative and fast to keep scores this high. Because the marketplace is constantly catching up. The bar just keeps going up and up and up.”