The managing director of a leading travel management company (TMC) says that making tough, even distressing, decisions early in the Covid crisis has put the business in a position to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.

Keith Sumner, of Gilpin Travel, says that despite the company being an entirely different and reduced entity to what it was a few months ago there are some signs of recovery.

Among the stories of colleagues and competitors coming together for the common good of the travel and tourism sectors, it is important that people don’t cause harm with conjecture, says business owner and TAANZ (Travel Agents’ Association if New Zealand) board member Keith Sumner.

Gilpin Travel has a number of new faces in its team.

Successful travel industry management and teams need to be benchmarked against the best in business – not only in their own sector, says Keith Sumner, managing director of Gilpin Travel.

Mobile technology and the desire for business travellers to have control (and immediacy) over their own arrangements presents both challenges and opportunities for the corporate travel management sector, says Jamie Gray of Gilpin Travel.

The government needs to ‘lower its sights’ to make it easier for skilled international travel agents to work in New Zealand, says Andrew Olsen, chief executive of the Travel Agents Association of New Zealand (TAANZ).

Olsen says that try as the industry might, it cannot convince the government that there is a skill shortage in the industry.

‘Visas should be made easier to obtain in this area,’ he says.