After two nights of in-person launch events in Montreal and Toronto, TravelBrands CEO Frank DeMarinis says his optimism for the future of Canadian travel agents is higher than ever.

“There was great energy in the room in Montreal, with 500 agents and 70 vendors. Everyone was so positive,” DeMarinis said in an interview with TravelPulse Canada prior to last night’s Toronto event where another 500 agents had signed up to attend in-person and several hundred more were expected to watch live-streaming of the event online.

“I still believe in the travel agent community and I think it will be there for many years to come,” DeMarinis added.

The pandemic shook the industry to its foundations, and many travel advisors and other industry members left the business. DeMarinis urged attendees to encourage friends to return.

“We need to survive. We need to build back the enthusiasm for a great industry. If you’ve left the industry, think about coming back. Don’t look through the lens of darkness. The darkness is gone.”

The TravelBrands CEO says the pandemic changed the way people view the importance of travel in their lives.

“It’s amazing how people value vacations differently today. When travel stopped it opened all of our eyes, let us see how fortunate we were. Now people just want to get out there and enjoy.

DeMarinis just returned from a trip to Europe, and says he was blown away by the crowds despite it being late September. “Europe travel normally tapers off by this time of year, but the streets were so crowded I had to walk on the road. Things are not only back to normal, they’re beyond back to normal.”

The rush to travel again is made more striking by the fact that prices for just about every component of travel have soared.

“We’ve seen a 40% increase in pricing, and I anticipate this will continue. Last-minute sales will not be there this year,” DeMarinis said.

But that’s not stopping a flood of bookings: “The price is not even coming into question. Is that sustainable? I don’t know,” DeMarinis said. “But this is a global rebound that will last for several years to come.”

The types of travel products travellers are looking for has evolved during the pandemic pause, DeMarinis said. “The model has changed, and consumer behaviour is different. There’s more demand for personalization and things that are outside the ITC package. Our FIT products are doing extremely well, and agents are learning that they can earn more with FIT.”

TravelBrands is looking to the future and putting a sharp focus on technology tools and digitalization after the industry fell short during the pandemic.

“I was one of the first to admit that we were not prepared to deal with the massive amounts of cancellations and rebookings. We were working with legacy systems that just couldn’t do the job. Now we’re working to prepare agents for the next generation of travel. We’re looking to smooth tasks, make it easy to cancel and rebook, and make everything transparent. We want to do things differently.”

DeMarinis says agents shouldn’t be afraid of new technology solutions and can absorb them at their own speed. “We’re working to bring the travel booking experience to the next level of digitalization. I suggest you embrace it slowly and try to understand that technology is in your favour and will make your work more efficient and profitable.”

Suppliers from cruise lines, resorts, tourism boards, airlines, car rental companies and more showed their wares and renewed acquaintances with travel agent partners at the TravelBrands event. It’s a reminder of the vast amount of product available from the company.

“We have an abundance of new suppliers on the FIT side. And through our Access reservations platform agents can book up to 1.5 million hotels and so much more. We offer flexibility and power and want to try to meet every demand.”