Jet-set for wholesale changes

Originally appeared in TravelWeekly Australia 22 August 2008
by Justin Wastnage

The recent Jetset Travelworld annual conference started under a cloud, but concrete changes were announced for the Qantas-owned group. Justin Wastnage reports on the outcomes of the meeting held recently in Fiji


Fijian villages often have a bati, or chief's bodyguard to ward off bad omens. Omens that include any kind of flying bird are the worst kind.
So it is no surprise that the cancellation of an Air Pacific Boeing 747-400 scheduled to take delegates to the Jetset Travelworld (JTG) annual conference in Fiji was a major talking point. In the end, 150 delegates arrived several hours late, some in the early morning.
Attendees, on the whole, understood the reason behind the delay (a hydraulic leak had delayed the aircraft's flight from Los Angeles). "Better a delay than flying in an unsafe aircraft," said Jean Kouriel, managing director of Honeymoon Worldwide Holidays.
Hotel group Accor, which was playing host at its Sofitel Fiji Resort and Spa on Denarau Island, even hastily arranged lunch for its captive audience at the Novotel in Brighton-le-Sands, near Sydney airport.
By the time John Campbell, Air Pacific chief executive, got to the stage the following morning and announced that he was "the guy who screwed up the flights" delegates were almost ready to forgive and forget and get on with the business at hand.
The business of integration, that is. This was the first conference since the merger of Qantas Holidays (Q Hols) with JTG, a point stressed by many of the speakers. Roch van Delft, Qantas general manager of travel industry sales in Australia said: "This is a strategic alignment that will bring together some of the strongest brands in travel."
Qantas has started a charm offensive with the trade and Q Hols is a big part of this. Its general manager Chris Rankin told delegates that his team's focus is to push the wholesaler as a trade wholesaler. "There has been some recent behaviour to reinforce this," he said.
Q Hols will resume a call to action for consumers to book via agents in its new advertising. The previous lack of this was a sore point for the trade and will be welcomed. Flight Centre is the only major chain not to be represented in the new national ads, Rankin told the cheering partisan crowd.
Long the most pro-Qantas and now firmly in the fold, JTG will be specially fêted by the wholesaler that is edging away from Qantas Airways through deals with airlines like Cathay Pacific and Etihad. Jetset and Travelworld agents, for example, have a dedicated reservations line for Q Hols, an initiative which may be replicated for other chains.
But branding is to go a step further too. The new head of JTG, Peter Collins, unveiled the new-look stores that will be rolled out in the coming months. The aim is to create a more unified branding, Collins said. Luckily for JTG, branding is an area where Qantas excels.
Collins was keen to stress the benefits of integration with the airline giant in his keynote speech, saying: "The merger will be used to leverage existing relationships and contractual agreements and to forge new relationships that will deliver new products and services."
For those who believe in omens, following the gala dinner and crowning event after days of integration celebration there were reports of a mysterious illness felling several delegates. Probably just bad luck or bad grog - unless you ask the batis, that is.