Earlier this year, New York-based agency Embark Beyond
completed its merger with Brickell Travel Management in Miami, forming an
agency with combined 2019 sales of about $175 million.
Jack Ezon, who co-founded Embark in 2018, said its structure
resembles a law firm: Its partners own a piece of the agency, giving them a
long-term career track and brand equity.
Brickell was a founding partner in Embark, and the two
entities now share the same platforms and assets. The merger began around
November, and its details were finalized in March.
According to Ezon, 2019 sales totaled $45 million in events
and celebrations, $35 million in leisure FIT trips, $65 million to $70 million
in corporate travel and $30 million in entertainment. With $175 million to $180
million in total sales, Embark Beyond would rank around No. 50 on Travel
Weekly’s Power List. In 2019, No. 50 was Conlin Travel, with $170.3 million in
2018 annual sales, and No. 49 was Travelink, with $181.5 million in 2018 sales.
(The 2020 Power List, which is based on 2019 sales, will be released June 22.)
The Brickell brand remains, Ezon said, as it is well-known in the marketplace.
“It made a lot of sense to keep their brand, and going forward,
I don’t envision that everything that becomes part of our family is going to
change its brand name,” he said. “With anything, you need to look at value that
a brand has versus the value of consolidating and building it into your current
brand.”
The virtual shutdown of travel due to the coronavirus
pandemic helped to accelerate the merging of operations.
Ezon estimated that integrating Brickell’s and Embark’s
systems (for instance, both are now on the same intranet and share reporting
tools enabling agents to see their production levels) would have taken six to
eight months under normal circumstances. But with fewer distractions during the
pandemic, that was cut to about three.
Ezon is particularly bullish about Embark’s program for
independent contractors (ICs). They can affiliate with the Embark side of the
business, which is a more leisure-focused agency affiliated with Virtuoso, or
Brickell’s division, an American Express affiliate focused on the premium and
corporate market.
Ezon said that Embark Collective, a program for independent
contractors, can help advisors look at hotels in a way that provides subjective
and insightful recommendations, presenting categories such as best beach hotels
to see and be seen, or buzzy downtown properties. It also includes details
suggesting what room categories to book for better value.
“It’s really helpful for an agent to be able to articulate
to a client why they should stay at one place or another and be a better
matchmaker, instead of just saying, ‘Here’s the top five hotels, and here’s the
information on that,’” he said.
Going forward, Embark’s focus is on finding a strategic
partner that specializes in artificial intelligence.
Ezon said he believes the technology will mature in the next
three to five years, and he wants to use it to mine the agency’s customer
relationship management tools to bolster travel advisors’ knowledge.
Ezon said Embark’s next endeavor would really enable agents
to take a “deep dive” into customer preferences, augmented by technology that
predicts more accurately and enhances customization.
“We don’t want to replace,” he said, “we want it to
supplement what humans do.”