Local agent is the brand, says Orient Express

Orient Express Travel Group’s 1ndependence Group is fine- tuning its partnership model for independent agents.

Branding for group members will take various forms, but overwhelmingly OETG says it has established that the local agent is “the brand”.

OETG chief executive, Tom Manwaring said 70 per cent of independent agents say they believe their brand is well recognised in their area, and 54 per cent do not want an overriding consumer brand in their shops.

Manwaring said today’s market presented a great opportunity for independents to embrace this new model, which is designed to return power to the business doing the selling.”

“From earlier research and at our 1ndependence forum in Phuket early this month, agents believe the success of their businesses comes from the community association of the people owning and working in the agency shops.” he said.

“Many of these businesses also carry the name of the owners who are generally keenly involved in local community activities, so they felt to lose that to a franchised brand would dilute their community marketing link,” said Manwaring.

“Importantly, they really know the buying patterns and preferences of their local market which can vary significantly from one region of Australia to another and sometimes these patterns have no relevance at all to a national campaign of a franchise brand which is actually co-funded by the local agent,” he said.

Within its new 2011 1ndependence package being launched next month, members will be offered a brand support tag line –
“An Independent Travel Expert … Talk to us!”

“Independent agents, including those who are currently in and/or have tried national franchise models are quite clear, they see major brand franchise agreements as highly-formulated, authoritarian, costly and carrying onerous penalties,” Manwaring said.

OETG said 1ndependence is offering agents a flexible, transparent, low-cost and non-mandatory core support service with an annual membership of just $500 which includes the Express Ticketing suite of products, airlines, wholesalers, technology, Sabre GDS, and operations support.

1ndependence then offers a range of optional customised partnership services – marketing support, Sabre Explorer, Sabre Red, staff training, marketing, benchmarking, conferences, product training, the Internet, home-based consultant services and branding.