Stronger Together: The TTAND and TLN Partnership

When The Travel Agent Next Door announced their partnership with The Travel Leaders Network at their last conference in November 2021 in Jamaica, they were greeted by a room full of cheering agents. The agreement of course had been in the works for quite some time and Canada was feeling we were reaching the light at the end of the tunnel with COVID. It was a time for new beginnings. Of course, in December, Omicron arrived so it’s really only now that we’re all able to fully celebrate the partnership.

“I really am a huge believer in that one plus one plus one can equal five,” explains Flemming Friisdahl, Founder and CEO, TTAND. “One is TTAND, two is our travel agent partners, and three is TLN. And I think when we all work together with a common goal of selling more travel, I believe very strongly that that will equal five.

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And that's because we take what they're good at, we take what we're good at, and I try to push them on being better at what they're already good at. I try to push myself to be better at what we're already good at. The agents decide what they want to utilize. But that's really what I believe is the strongest part is; how do we keep making it stronger?”

Stronger is the theme of this year’s conference - STTANDing Stronger Together - and it’s a relevant one. The industry, particularly agents, have had one rough rollercoaster ride the last two years. More than 200 of them along with about 50 suppliers, have gathered onboard Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas for the conference which has jam-packed days of sessions with a few port days at St. Maarten, St. Thomas and A Perfect Day at Coco Cay.

Friisdahl and TLN Senior Vice President, International Leisure, Lindsay Pearlman say what makes this partnership stand out is the amount of support dedicated to agents from both TTAND and TLN. The two are constantly collaborating on ideas and feedback to ensure agents have the best possible tools they need – it’s then up to agents to take that and turn it into making their businesses grow.

“The whole idea is that TLN knows what we can do and are good at doing. TTAND knows what they're good at doing. The more we learn how each other works, the more it's about how do we integrate seamlessly what each other needs,” says Pearlman. “We can integrate what we have, but only in the product lines they need. There is a lot of things that we do that don't make sense for the TTAND business model. So, we evolve it and we continue to evolve and have regular conversations. Communication is happening not just between us, but our entire operations team. It's been very, very good.”

The partnership brings many benefits to TTAND agents, one of the big ones being their magazines. Other partners have offered mostly high-end luxury offerings, which doesn’t resonate well with many Canadians as the products and price points are simply out of budget. TLN offers a diversified range of products for all agents and travellers. Other advantages are their hotel and cruise programs, which allow agents to book hotels such as the Four Seasons and gives access to over 96,000 state rooms at special rates.

Overall, the partnership is another benefit TTAND agents can use to succeed and make their work easier.

“There was one slide I put up today (during presentation) without logos – there was no branding to it,” explains Pearlman. “And we do that on purpose. Our whole focus is to help TTAND agents build their brand, not necessarily just the TTAND brand. We are saying pick and choose what you need. And we have enough critical mass that allows us to do that and pick and choose what you need. And that's what we'll deliver.”

Friisdahl says that “time is the only thing is we all know that we don't have forever, we all know we're not going to be here forever. So why not get as much free time we can?

We learn as we get older that money isn't as important as time. And that's what we're trying to give our all partners, tools and time.”