Audley launches VIP members' club for most-valued agents 

Audley Travel has launched an exclusive invitation-only members’ club for a small number of its most valued travel agents.

The move came as the operator unveiled plans to increase trade business from 5% to 10% of overall turnover in the “next few years” and announced it was recruiting for the new role of trade marketing executive to bolster its three-strong trade team.

The VIP members’ club, Kindred, was unveiled at a two-day event called Away, for agents chosen to be among the initial cohort of 40 members.

Head of trade sales Greg Thurston said the tailor-made luxury operator had opted to rethink its approach in a bid to reward individual agents. It has previously run a sales-related loyalty club called A-List. 

He said: “A-List gave certain perks to agencies, such as marketing funds, for hitting certain volumes of sales. We felt the individuals or homeworkers within a larger company were not really seeing the benefits.

“We are defining Kindred as a members’ club rather than a loyalty scheme. Sales do come into it but Kindred is not based on agent targets or incentives.”

Benefits of the club will fall under three categories – connection, collaboration and celebration – and will include special events, personalised training and marketing, dedicated communications, exclusive content and experiences honouring agents’ sales successes.

An agent advisory board will be set up for members to help steer how the operator works with agents.

Thurston did not rule out increasing the size of the club in future but said: “We want agents to feel special. This is very focused on individuals and trying to make them feel valued and part of Audley, and to feel the benefit of our growth.

“This is for the agents who really want to work with Audley and are passionate about our product. 

“We want to keep it quite small to create a sense of community, so it feels like a club.”

He stressed the club was part of the operator’s broader strategy to work more closely with the trade, with more training events and fam trips planned for next year.

“There are huge numbers of agents who could do more with us or don’t sell Audley, so we are planning a lot of other activities over the next few months and next year,” he added.

Image: Audley Travel’s head of sales Greg Thurston