A one-page business plan, some common sense and no tolerance for bull has seen GTN mark a milestone 10 years of operations.
And ceo Rob Beecher told attendees at GTN’s 2026 conference that even 12 months ago, he would not have believed that more than 200 people would gather together for a long-haul conference in Kuala Lumpur, far exceeding his original hopes of 120 people.
Beecher and GTN’s coo Allen Bell resigned from their previous employer on 15 Sep 2015, starting GTN with two desks, two chairs and two laptops, and a one-page business plan. He says the duo wrote their own ‘world famous’ one page agent contract and, most importantly, convinced a group of agents to take a chance and to trust them.
“They became our founding agents and many of them are in the room with us tonight.”
By 2016, there were 46 agents signed with GTN, with the first ticket issued on 04 Jan 2016, a Cathay Pacific ticket for Midday Travel. “Looking back I can’t believe we actually did everything in 77 days…but we did,” says Beecher. “And as the saying goes, the rest is history.”
Now, GTN is a multimillion-dollar company, which Bell attributes to the way GTN shares information, success and financial rewards, as well as honesty.
“Other brands preach the no bull-shit mantra,” Bell adds. “At GTN we live it.”
GTN’s point of difference remains its locality; ten years on it is still 100% New Zealand owned and operated.
There’s also its strong independent agent focus, with Bell pointing out GTN remains the only company in the New Zealand marketplace that is set up to solely look after independent agents. Alongside the family of agents, Bell thanks suppliers for getting the company to where it is today, pointing out that when he and Beecher set up GTN, there was a fair bit of pressure from both sides of the Tasman for suppliers not to deal with them. He also thanks his team, saying everyone that works at GTN is ‘at the top of their field’.
