Steve Byrne
CEO
Travel Counsellors
Travel Counsellors
Objective
Establish a positioning that embraced the core strands of technology, talent and CSR, while highlighting the company’s rapid growth and disruption story in the global travel market.
Strategy
Creating high impact national business stories, underpinned by personal development plans for the senior leadership team to attract prospective investors and support recruitment.
Tactics
- National media announcements focusing on Travel Counsellors’ strong growth and innovation, including financial performance, investment in technology, recruitment and talent development.
- Positioning members of the management team as thought leaders in the press, business community and travel industry.
- Creating winning entries for credible and impactful national business awards.
- Ensure inclusion on key national growth indexes and rankings tables.
- Sourcing reactive opportunities for Travel Counsellors to comment on major developments in the travel sector or modern working practices.
- Thought leadership to illustrate the firm’s innovative business model, its commitment to improving the customer journey and the support it provides its franchisees.
- Introductions to key national and business journalists, to develop long-term positive relationships.
Results
- Won key national business awards including the Customer Focus Award at the 2017 National Business Awards and the 2017 BVCA North West Management Team of the Year.
- Included in The Sunday Times Top Track 250 for the third successive year and The Sunday Times International Track 200 for the sixth.
- National business profiling in The Daily Telegraph, The Times, City A.M, covering financial results, award wins and recruitment.
- 11 years of consecutive double digit revenue, supported by PE-backed investment, passing the £500m total transaction value for the first time.
- A network of 1,700 Travel Counsellors across seven countries, including over 1,000 in the UK.
- Significant investment in technological innovation, with an additional £21m provided in 2017.
- A series of speaker platforms and roundtable events for members of the senior management team, including at Northern Powerhouse-led events.
