Travel Leaders Hotel Programs Booming

With a majority of travel agents within Travel Leaders Group now actively using its Worldwide Hotel Program, the group reports bookings have passed the 200,000 room nights mark.

The Travel Leaders Group’s proprietary suite of hotel initiatives – which features the Worldwide Hotel Program, Select Hotels & Resorts and Stream prepaid hotel program – is an unqualified success the group says. A recent survey of nearly 1,000 travel agents affiliated with Travel Leaders Group show a solid majority are already actively using the  Worldwide Hotel Program - alone enough to have surpassed the 200,000 room nights booked milestone.

“Because of the enormous success of both the Travel Leaders Group Worldwide Hotel Program and its high-end, luxury cousin – Select Hotels & Resorts – we are suddenly finding ourselves the ‘victims of our own success’ as both of those programs are proving to require much more specialized focus than we initially anticipated to maintain momentum and further accelerate their growth,” said Travel Leaders Group CEO Barry Liben

“Thus, we are finding it necessary to restructure our leadership. Mai Meyaart will continue leading our Worldwide Hotel Program as its Vice President, while Christina Malik will now focus her efforts entirely on leading our Select Hotels & Resorts program as its Vice President. Make no mistake, this is a great ‘problem’ to have. Each of our hotel initiatives has far surpassed our expectations, and our agents are repeatedly telling us how much they value these programs," Liben said. 

Stream, another group hotel program, led by Vice President Tiffany Glass, is also proving its value. “With sales of over $1 million again in September, we have enjoyed seven consecutive months of sales volume in excess of $1 million,” Liben noted. “We’re now closing in on 100,000 room nights booked since we first launched Stream in October 2011. The most-booked destinations include London, Paris, New York, Las Vegas and Rome, all of which dovetail almost precisely with the most popular destinations we’re booking for our clients.”

The Worldwide Hotel Program includes over 30,000 hotels globally.  Using the code 7TL for Travelport and Amadeus users and TL7 for Sabre, all travel agents throughout the Travel Leaders Group enterprise are able to provide clients with highly competitive and commissionable rates at all participating properties, while also offering amenities such as complimentary breakfast and Wi-Fi at a large cross-section of them.

“The TL7 rate code works. In mid-August, we had a hotel request from a valued client who needed four rooms in South Bend for the Oklahoma University versus Notre Dame game in September. There was only one hotel in town available – at $349 per night,” explained Angela Hedges Hendricks,  President and CEO of the Travel Leaders franchise location in Oklahoma City, OK. “Our agent Carrie found the same rooms for $52 per night each in Sabre using the TL7 rate code, thanks to the Travel Leaders Group Worldwide Hotel Program.”

Select Hotels & Resorts features more than 450 of the world’s most prestigious hotel and resort properties, the group says. All participating hotels offer competitive rates along with complimentary breakfasts, special VIP amenities, early check-ins and late check-outs (when available) and room upgrades (upon availability).  Qualified Travel Leaders Group travel agents are able to book the properties directly through the GDS using TZE in Worldspan, Sabre and Amadeus and TZEL in Apollo/Galileo.

Stream, which is offered via an online tool, is a prepaid hotel program offering all Travel Leaders Group agents with guaranteed 12  percent commissions on over 75,000 hotels worldwide.

Visit www.travelleadersgroup.com.