Travel Counsellors creating ‘huge bank’ of bespoke itineraries

Travel Counsellors is creating a bank of bespoke itineraries that its agents can adapt and sell to their customers.

The new system, named TC Journeys, was unveiled by managing director Kirsten Hughes at the firm’s annual conference in Manchester.

Hughes told delegates the aim of the software, which will be integrated into the agency’s booking platform Phenix and rolled out in two phases, is to “make your lives a lot easier”.

More: Travel Counsellors to launch AI-generated booking system in 2024

“We know multi-centre itineraries are becoming more popular,” said Hughes. “And we know that every time you get one you’ve got to start from scratch on Phenix; you’ve got to build it and finesse it each time. We’ve noticed by looking at your itineraries, that often they are very similar.

“So rather than taking you hours to put an itinerary if you don’t know a destination, we’ve been building something that we hope will make your lives a lot easier.”

The first phase of the launch, due to commence at the end of next month, will see Travel Counsellors’ head office team load “a number of itineraries” into Phenix. Each itinerary will include hotels and flights.

“You will be able to lift it, check the availability for the dates and number of people you want, and then change and amend it as you see fit,” added Hughes.

Phase two is scheduled for early next year and will enable Travel Counsellors agents to share their own itineraries with their network of colleagues by loading them into the system.

“We hope to eventually have a huge bank of itineraries that you can go and take inspiration from and use,” said Hughes. “For example, if your customer wants a luxury 14-day West Coast itinerary, you go onto TC Journeys, search the specific categories, lift it, tweak it and quote it.”

Hughes urged agents to “share as much knowledge and information as possible” with the Travel Counsellors community on Phenix, namely reviews, because “we’re only as good as the content we have in our platform”.

The announcement received a round of applause from conference delegates.