Grow Your Travel Business with CCRA

From FAM trips to local meetings, we explore what CCRA has to offer to the Travel Massive community.

Are you interested in selling travel? If the answer is yes, then this article is for you.

We asked Maggie Fischer, CCRA’s Chief Marketing Officer, about how the community can get involved with CCRA’s products and services and how the preparations for their first ever national conference are going.

Tell us more about CCRA (for those members that don’t know you yet)?

For over 40 years, CCRA has been powering a global collection of brands designed to offer travel agencies and suppliers the resources they need to run a profitable business.

We provide the global travel industry with one of the largest distribution and marketing networks in the world.

Through our network, we reach tens of thousands of travel agency points of sale in every corner of the market, as well as the travel industry’s top hotel and air consortiums, and the only 24/7 call center trusted by more than half of Travel Weekly’s Power List of the world’s top travel agencies.

What products and services do you offer?

We offer several great products and services for travel professionals – many of which are free to use. Which ones are relevant for your travel business really boils down to how you operate. Here’s a quick breakdown:

How to get involved as a travel seller

New or experienced travel professionals booking travel through a host agency or directly with suppliers and OTAs will want to check out:

• CCRA Accredited Agency Membership powered by the TRUE Code
• TripSet.com, our all-new booking engine

Experienced travel professionals booking travel through a GDS with their own ARC or IATA number should learn more about:

• AirSelect Program
• CCRA Global Preferred Hotel Program

We also have 24/7 Call Center Services for travel businesses in need of after-hours support. Want to learn more? Check out this helpful blog post that describes each program in more details.

How to get involved as a travel supplier

We have over 10,000 member agencies including some of the largest corporate travel agencies in the world to highly sought-after travel influencer and independent travel advisors.

This provides CCRA suppliers with one of the largest distribution and marketing networks in the world.

A great way to take advantage of this powerful network are our global events, of which we host six each year, including a 3-day national conference designed to showcase your brand and educate qualified travel agencies on your products and offerings.

👉 Learn more about exhibiting at PowerSolutions National and claim your Travel Massive discount.

Finally, here are some more products and services that we invite all travel professionals to take advantage of: Our PowerSolutions regional events, local chapter meetings, online training, FAM trips and dedicated support.

How can Travel Massive members get involved with CCRA (and why should they)?

There are lots of ways that Travel Massive members can see immediate benefit in getting involved with CCRA. I recommend starting with a chat with one of our agency services managers (for our agents) or one of our supplier account execs.

👋 Give us a shout on live chat or schedule some time with one of our specialists.

Both can help you evaluate your goals and line you up with some easy resources to start with – and we’ll stick with you as you grow and evolve and develop needs for more services. But once you connect with us, we’ll become a huge advocate for your travel business and help you navigate through the endless options you likely have in front of you right now.

What are some of the main topics you’re focused on heading into 2019?

Industry education is huge –and there are some huge issues that everyone is encountering with developing a solid knowledge base of what’s out there to help travel agents and suppliers, from accreditations to host agencies, consortiums, associations, etc.

We want to help everyone sort out the endless sea of acronyms, products and services, and then feel confident about the decisions they’re making for their business.

Trying to “sell” CCRA’s products and services is nearly impossible without having that information, so that’s always our first priority so everyone can make decisions they feel great about.

Aside from that, we’re really on a mission to help both agencies and suppliers improve the way they operate, and ensure they’re retaining as much of their hard-earned revenues as they can, while providing the best customer service possible. We’ve been longstanding partners of some of the world’s elite agencies, and we want to bring that knowledge and experience to everyone interested in running a profitable travel business.

One of the very best ways to experience CCRA is by attending our PowerSolutions National Conference this February 7-9 at the Gaylord National Resort!

At the conference, we’ll be tackling current industry topics such as how to work with influencers, how to become more sustainable, different sales and marketing strategies, travel tech developments and more.

📌 Learn more about CCRA’s PowerSolutions National Conference (February 7-9, 2019).

We hope to see you there!

Thanks, Maggie, for these insights.

Follow CCRA on Travel Massive to connect with them and learn more.