As the competition heats up in the broker space, there’s one start-up that is fast making in-roads.
Wanderlust Travel Experts launched last Jun and already has 35 agents, serviced by a support team of five.
“To be honest we’ve grown faster than I expected, and we’ve grown at pace while still maintaining a focus on ensuring our members are well-supported,” says Wanderlust co-founder Cath McLeod, who believes the brand could have 50-60 members by the year’s end.
“We have a strong pipeline of new members joining in the coming months so we will continue to expand the team as we continue to grow, to ensure we have the right support structure…” With membership and turnover exceeding expectations McLeod says she’s ‘very humbled’ by the trade response; ‘and very grateful for the trust agents have placed in us to move their business after so many years with other brands’.
Wanderlust is New Zealand-owned with 50% private ownership, and 50% House of Travel Holdings ownership ‘ensuring we maintain our independence’, stresses McLeod.
“As a result we are able to be nimble and agile and react to market changes and make decisions for our stakeholders quickly…there’s no layers of corporate bureaucracy and lots of different stakeholders to consider.”
McLeod says it utilises HoT’s technology platforms, and members have access to HoT’s ‘preferred supplier deals that offer very competitive POS commissions’, as well as its own supplier deals ‘to ensure we have the right product mix for our stakeholders and their clients’. “Our model is all about choice and the right fit for our stakeholders; our partnership with GTN has enabled us to get the best fares and ticketing support for our members with a choice of self-write for those that want it,” she adds.
. . . USP: Support
Wanderlust’s key difference is the support the brand offers its members, says McLeod. “We [offer] so many opportunities to connect and get support—including one-on-one business support with myself,” she says. Wanderlust members will also attend the GTN conference with its own breakout afternoon session for our members, and holds its own mini conference in Dec. “We have built a collaborative and supportive community that we refer to as our travel family,” she adds.
The brand’s new cruise booking engine has been well-received and ‘underscores the value our partnership with [HoT] Holdings brings to the table in terms of access to tech’.
