Jamie Biesiada
When it's time to pick a new consortium, how do you select the right one?
For Jim Bailey, who owns Fox Travel in the Woodlands, Texas, with his wife Donna Daniels, it came down to one thing: infrastructure.
Fox Travel has been in operation since 1984. The agency was focused on corporate travel until the 1990s, when airline commission cuts led to a shift in focus to leisure. Today, Bailey said, Fox focuses on leisure and groups; it has eight travel advisor employees. The agency sold a ship charter business a few months ago, though Bailey said they still do some charters.
"We mix it up with day-to-day FIT vacations as well as groups," he said.
Bailey recently found himself looking for a new consortium to call home. When Fox Travel started out, the agency was independent, then it spent 15 years affiliated with Uniglobe. Then, for the next 25, Fox was affiliated with American Express' representative network, until Amex shut the network down at the end of 2022.
Like the other agencies who had been part of Amex's network, Fox Travel began the process of finding a new consortium.
Bailey said he and Daniels considered several, including Travelsavers, Signature Travel Network and Travel Leaders Network (TLN).
Ultimately, they landed on Travel Leaders Network (I caught up with Bailey earlier this year at the network's annual Edge conference). They officially affiliated with TLN last November.
TLN's infrastructure was what ultimately positioned it ahead of its peers in Fox Travel's eyes.
"They are very impressive," Bailey said. "They have very, very advanced research. There are no rookies involved. You've got some really, really talented people, and they cover everything from air, to technology, to social media, to business, to corporate."
Bailey was also drawn to TLN's strong social media and marketing programs, including mass mailings and targeted mailings to segments of clients.
For agencies just starting out in the business, Bailey offered some advice: "Start slow. Start where there's no competition."
Decide whether to work from home, rent an office or work for an agency with a brick-and-mortar location, like Fox Travel, he said. And decide what you want to sell. Importantly, Bailey said, advisors should sell products they like.
"Your passion is what your avocation and your vocation can be," he said.