Armed with a clear strategy, new additions to the team and some ambitious goals, World Travellers is continuing to make gains.
The event featured strategic updates, panel discussions, inspirational speakers and its awards (see pg 8).
World Traveller’s chair Wendy van Lieshout paid tribute to recently appointed gm Jodie Burnard’s efforts during her first 90 days with the cooperative. “In addition to the conference she’s also kicked off some really big projects, like massive ones, and it just really shows that she’s got huge capacity to just get stuff done which everyone’s excited about.”
Having a clear strategy, and an engaged board with responsibilities tied to their skill set is paying dividends, says van Lieshout. “People are really enjoying the connection and the depth of experience, we’ve got new people like Tori [Courtney] coming on board and putting [the board members] in specialist areas has made a really big difference.”
She says the board is supporting Burnard and the team ‘in a much better way than we have before’.
. . . Positive Outlook
The World Travellers chair also says member feedback to the changes has been ‘nothing but positive’. “… there’s always a little bit of a fear of change, but [we] through masses of communication and really good, open communication and not being afraid to talk about the hard things,” she adds.
The main thing that has shaped its future recently is having a really clear plan, says van Lieshout. The cooperative’s ‘North Star’, she adds, is effectively how World Travellers can help make its businesses and members more profitable and more productive.
Although it launched 15 years ago, van Lieshout says its cooperative model is more relevant in the market than ever.
“In this day and age, there’s just not enough room for layers and layers of ownership and corporate stuff because travel is hard enough as it is,” she says. “So the fact that we can just pass everything through to [the members] and give them the choice of where to invest that really strong commercial return sits really nicely beside the independence of our members…”
Another strength, she says, is that its smaller members have just as much input at the larger businesses.
van Lieshout also acknowledged its strengthening supplier partnerships.
“…it’s been incredible to see the growth that’s come for suppliers, particularly those that are supporting our marketing efforts. It is like night and day.”
