Vacation.com Expands Network, Gears Up for Conference

As its educational conference in New Orleans nears this June, Vacation.com on Friday added an unusual company to its preferred supplier roster: Radius, a corporate travel management network. Vacation.com members can now access the consortia's "Preferred Hotel Rate Program," which offers more than 11,000 individually contracted hotels in 2,400 cities worldwide, as well as its Wheel 2.0 tool, which uses share-shift technology to garner special promotional prices from competing vendors. Vacation.com members have free access to the usually fee-based tool for three months and then have the option of continuing the service at a reduced rate. At a press luncheon that day, Stephen McGillivray, vice president of marketing for Vacation.com, said this partnership does not represent a shift in the company's focus, but rather serves as an added benefit for agency members that mix corporate and leisure business. Indeed, recent additions to Vacation.com's preferred supplier group fall in the leisure category and include Pleasant Holidays and Homeric Tours, as well as Marriott International and London Gray Line. Seminars and training sessions on such suppliers will be held at Vacation.com's conference in New Orleans June 27 through July 1. Steve Tracas, president and CEO of Vacation.com said he is so confident agencies will monetarily profit from this conference that Vacation.com is offering a guarantee of up to $1,000 if agents don't profit from implementing the sales or cost-cutting techniques taught during the five days. Visit [www.vacation.com] or [www.agentnet.com/conference].