TDC helps members shine by harnessing star power in a changing travel landscape
If you ask Karine Gagnon how things are going, Transat Distribution Canada’s (TDC) General manager will tell you: “I’m happy to report, in terms of performance and sales in general, 2025 has been a good year. We’re already, obviously, booking next year as well and we recently surveyed our members – our agency owners – to see how they felt about this year and the future and it’s positive.”
In fact, Gagnon continued: “Over 80% of our members are reporting that they’re satisfied with their sales or indicators of sales.”
And while she said that “there is a trend where sales are steady or growing, but the number of passengers is down, that is attributable to different things, mainly the increase in the cost of travel for one, but not only [just that], it’s also this diversification and increase of asking for more premium experiences – what we call luxury travel in general – but it’s not a bad thing to be generating more revenues with less passengers.”
Looking forward to 2026, Gagnon said that “60% of our owners see an increase in sales as well. For me, these days, stability is key in a world that’s not so stable all the time. You know, we operate our own agencies across the country, the last few weeks have been good, actually better than September last year. That’s kind of ironic, but we’ll take it.”
And Gagnon pointed out, “this geopolitical climate does create some uncertainty and we don’t know – although the industry is performing well and is stable – we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next couple of months.”
Asked about the impact this was having on TDC’s business, she said: “If we talk about travel to the US, it’s never been a huge part of our business. In our own agencies, it’s anywhere between 6% and 8% year-on-year in the overall business and most of that is Cruise business coming out of the US. So, earlier on this year, with the big slowdown and less demand in the US, the impact was pretty limited when it comes to TDC. You know, there were some cancellations, but nothing impactful.”
TDC spotlights Star Power of its members
Star Power, Light the Way in the Sky of Choices was the theme of TDC’s recent Rendez-vous conferences in Quebec and Ontario in September and it’s a theme that reinforces the message that TDC’s member agencies and agents are “the shining stars” for their customers “guiding them in all things and choices that exist in travel.”
In fact, TDC is constantly reminding its member agencies and advisors of their Star Power with Marc Pelletier, Senior Director of Marketing, Communications and Events, TDC, observing: “One of our messages is be unique and show your value to the customers,” explaining that when they’re talking about the product to their clients, they should also be talking about what their value proposition is in that relationship.”
Gagnon certainly agrees, pointing out that for many years “it was about the product, the destination and, you know, [the value of] travel professionals, even in the marketing of consortia, wasn’t even put forward.’
TDC changed that, with Gagnon explaining that: “Through the pandemic, we launched a specific campaign that was designed to showcase the value of the travel professionals.”
“At the time, it was a campaign. Today, it’s really part of the DNA of our marketing and the approach that we take more and more with our marketing, whether that be nationally or how we support agencies in their local market,” she said.
Professional development in demand
For TDC, professional development is a fundamental pillar of what it does for its members, recognizing that it is key to ensuring that those members are as best positioned as possible and this becomes increasingly critical in uncertain times.
Its Rendez-vous conferences, National Leadership Conference, Master Classes on a range of topics and its training hub speak to TDC’s commitment to professional development. And in any discussion of professional development, the issue of specialization definitely comes up.
“There’s definitely demand from the field to be more specialized,” Gagnon observed, pointing out that the market has become so competitive and travel agencies are looking for ways to stand out and specialization is one of those ways.
And TDC is supporting that, with Gagnon explaining that “we’re constantly evolving our offer to make sure that we’re tapping into these experiences that tie into some of the specializations.”
And she continued: “We also on our end see the opportunity as well because the market is so competitive where consumers’ needs are evolving, the trends are changing and at the same time the expertise of travel advisors remains a very strong selling point and our role is to support our travel agent community to be best positioned and to keep pace with all of this evolution.”
In this respect, TDC is certainly providing lots of marketing support to it members and social media is a key area of support, with Pelletier explaining that to help members who want to bring in new customers and increase their marketshare, it has a social media tool that helps them with content creation.
As well, during Rendez-vous, TDC announced that it was making Canva, a graphic design tool available to members – initially to franchise members, but it will be available to affiliate members “very soon” as well.
Pelletier said that the Canva templates “are pre-approved, brand safe, right colours, the right logo, the right balance of elements and [can be used for] not only their social media posts, but they can also use Canva to create flyers and things like that.”
AI: opportunity knocks
Artificial Intelligence is part of virtually every industry conversation these days and naturally that subject came up in the conversation with Gagnon and Pelletier.
“AI is a tool that should be used by travel advisors and others,” Pelletier said. “We’re [TDC] using it in marketing to do more — to automate some processes – but it’s definitely not a replacement for a travel advisor.”
In fact, the message that TDC has been delivering for a while, Pelletier said is to “be open to new technology and try to see how it can help you in your work and I think that’s where the opportunity is for our members.”
And he continued: “You can see AI as a threat or you can see it as an opportunity and we encourage them to the latter [view]. It can make their lives easier. It can make them [advisors] more productive and able to do more.”
Pelletier also said that the training that TDC introduced on AI last year is still in high demand, with members wanting to “see what this tool, this technology, can do for us.”
And he added that AI training is a high priority for TDC, considering the fact that that technology has and continues to evolve.
Gagnon pointed out that some years ago, it was the web and competition from online travel agencies that was the big fear and today, it’s AI.
“Obviously, AI is a whole other dimension,” Gagnon said, “but it’s also the first time that I think there’s an opportunity for travel agencies to use leverage to be more efficient.”
And she related the results of a show of hands at TDC’s Quebec conference when the 100 agency owners in the audience were asked who was using AI regularly and “I’ll tell you 95% of the room raised their hand. So, I think our role is to continue to support them and help them see the opportunities.”
Luxury, wellness trending with TDC
Luxury certainly tops the list of trends for TDC with Gagnon observing that “it’s probably one of the main ones that we have as a focus in the coming years,” and adding that it is “definitely a segment that is more and more in demand now.”
She explained that: “TDC started positioning itself in the luxury space back in 2022,” and while turnkey vacation packages will remain “the majority of our activities, … we identified that there was an opportunity within the luxury space” early on.
And while Gagnon points out that “luxury means a million things,” continuing “it’s anything between your standard experience and top, top of the line luxury and as we have evolved in this space over the last few years, we’re realizing that for our customers for TDC agencies, the definition of luxury is a lot around the premium.”
She explained: “There are different things that fall into that. When you think of immersive trips and even adventure [travel], expedition cruises – these can all be experienced in the luxury space.”
Right now, TDC has about 30 preferred partners who fall into that premium or luxury space and Gagnon said that: “We want to continue to enhance the portfolio partners that tailor to luxury travel and formalize a little bit more the way we present it today because we have all these partners but we think if we frame them in a specific program section and give agents more visibility on what’s available to them in the luxury space through TDCs partnerships, we can amp up our presence there.”
Wellness is another trend, which Gagnon makes clears “is not just about booking a massage at the spa when you’re going on your all-inclusive vacation.”
“There’s a whole other level of Wellness where travel professionals, and the whole value that they bring that we’re talking about, can alleviate everything that is around stress and planning the trip. Making sure that they’re booking for their customers’ experiences that will be, that you know, will rejuvenate, and that do good for the soul and body and there’s definitely an opportunity there.”
In fact, during Rendez-vous in Toronto, TDC launched a Wellness section on its TDC Hub, “framing it on how to sell Wellness; what kind of customers, potential customers, do you need to look for to be tapping into that; and what preferred partner experiences does TDC offer that fit in this whole trend,” she said.
As for the future, Gagnon observed: “We’re confident. I think our owners are confident. And we’re giving them the most tools possible to make sure they remain agile and relevant for our customers.”
