XL TRAVEL will launch its new ITC brand, XL Travel Masters, in the next few weeks under the leadership of Franz von Wielligh, general manager.
Franz told Travel News that XL Travel had been contemplating the decision to enter ITC market for some time but the COVID-19 crisis accelerated the need.
“The ugly side-effect of this pandemic is that it has caused tremendous job security problems for many seasoned and skilled travel consultants and many will find themselves out of work. We realised that we have to play our part in assisting consultants to get on their feet by setting up a business and creating a platform for them to be the masters of their own destiny,” says Franz.
XL Travel Masters will provide its ITCs with a “travel agent in a box” solution, supplying them with all necessary software and hardware to get them going. Fees are transaction-based and there is no commission split. “100% point of sale goes to the ITC because they deserve to keep all their hard-earned upfront commission,” adds Franz.
The accounting system is centralised and clients will pay the host company direct, but the invoices will be processed under the name of ITC. XL’s ITC model does include a share of overrides.
“The majority of overrides will go back to the ITC and the overrides that are retained will be used towards the functioning of the technology,” he says.
XL Travel Masters will provide the ITCs with access to a back-office function, all the XL Group’s preferred partner deals and free access to an online booking tool for their corporate clients.
Franz told Travel News that the membership fee the company is looking at is around R2 000, which covers the virtualisation solution which will allow ITCs to work remotely on any device.
“I receive two or three enquiries per day from potential ITCs, even though we haven’t officially launched. We just need to finalize a couple of things like the website and the virtualisation solution and we should be ready within the next two weeks,” he concluded.
