Globally collaboration has become the new game changing mechanism to not only sustain the future of business but also to strategically harmonise individual strong holds in the value chain of business activities for a collective gain and growth.
In the tourism and travel business, it was no more a news that more and more business owners are systemically making it a routine following the trend of business that come with phenomenal dynamism.
However, business trend has also shown that incentives play a developmental role in advancing the effort of individual business owners irrespective of their status and placement in the saturated market which need more innovation for one to sustain a significant tempo in the travel market.
Also the new normal that came with the deadly wind of the COVID-19 pandemic has left stakeholders no choice to follow the new template of unusual approach to business to remain onboard as the business as usual syndrome has gone with the tornados of coronavirus.
But better days are here with the birth of Travel Hub, an idea conceptualized to continue to say no to faceless briefcase agents that tout the travel industry; many of whom unsuspecting travellers have fallen victims to.
Again, the Travel Hub is also to redeem the credibility of genuine and professional travel practitioners continuously battered by frequent reports of high incidents of fraud in the industry revealed the Chief Executive Officer of Travel Hub, Mr Yinka Folami, who addressed selected media men at the opening of the one stop shop hub in Lagos recently.
According to Folami “the hub is an initiative of industry passionate practitioners who have observed the trends (pre and post COVID- 19) and decided to invest in taking travel agency off the streets, into physical and virtual offices with credible location details and identity.
“This comes at no direct overhead costs to young, upcoming, and credible travel practitioners that are passionate about the travel industry.”
Folami who believed in the power of collaboration as the new normal for sustainable business in the travel world said Travel Hub is an aggregator, in response to the need for collaboration and for strong conversations in the industry. Travel Hub is a strong bridge to success in the travel industry.
“Travel Hub is a collaborative travel agency platform that provides physical and virtual office spaces/facilities to upcoming and credible agencies at no cost. The hub aggregates the collaborative purchases of airline tickets and other related travel products, and coordinates the professional conduct of members for regulatory compliance.
“The hub also supports members at times of need through a credibly established cooperative society (Esusu) and access to HMO. Hub members are fondly referred to as Hubbers.”
Speaking on the hub collaboration, Mr Dayo Adeola, a veteran in travel industry and the current BOT Chairman of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies said that the idea was not entirely new, but that the unique point was that Travel HUB was more focussed on the strength and growth of the upcoming agents referred to in the industry as Sub-Agents.
“The key take-out here is ‘one voice’, which is strong and commendable. He added that Travel HUB deserves applause, and that travel agency will certainly get more interesting post COVID-19.
Adeola said “the so call sub-agents have the network but they don’t have the infrastructures. So the success of all travel agencies is to have one voice and we can’ take out the sub agents because they are the grassroots. the big agent will go for corporate and all of that and with COVID-19 the corporate are not flying so for the market breakthrough, you need the grassroot and the only way to get them organise is to create an environment for them.
“There was a time we have an evacuation and we found out that 80 per cent of the flight is filled up by sub-agents. So they have the network but they don’t have the capacity in terms of infrastructure. But when you have the network and low infrastructure, definitely it won’t balance so the essence of the hub is to bring that network merge it with infrastructure and have a good product so that the customer is happy, the hubbers and the founders.
“There are values in those agents, until we package them right people will not respect them and that is the main essence of the Travel Hub.”
Taking it from another point of view, this concept will go a long way to reducing the fraud cases of travel agents to the barest minimum said the President of National Association of Nigeria travel agencies (NANTA), Mrs Susan Akporaiye
Akporaiye explained that not many of them set out to be fraudulent, adding that these so call agents are grassroots’ agents, they have the network but they do not have the capacity, so sometimes what happen to them is that they get overwhelmed it become “fraud” because they don’t know how to handle it.
“A lot of them don’t start that way and that is not their intention but the problem is that they just have this much inflow and they do not have the capacity to handle it, so some of them just fall into fraud.
“So the Travel Hub is going to serve as a mentorship platform to let them know that you have this much going on, you have better and we can help you to organiser yourselves better and this will help us to stop the frequent news of fake and fraudulent travel agent(s).”
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