Air Canada Vacations kicked off its 2024 cross-Canada winter product launches in Vancouver on 04SEP with a dazzling mix of entertainment, food, prizes and a sold-out supplier trade show that had hundreds of advisors buzzing.
The primary takeaway is Air Canada Vacations has grown its global portfolio light years beyond the coveted beach vacation.
”We’re presenting the world today.” Nino Montagnese, Vice President, Air Canada Vacations
An energetic, capacity crowd of 400 agents mingled with more than 50 suppliers, including partners Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge, and Aeroplan, and some of the world’s most recognized hoteliers and cruise line representatives, such as Bahia Principe Hotel & Resorts, Sandals Beaches & Resorts, Royal Caribbean International and Princess Cruises.
For Air Canada Vacations Vice President Nino Montagnese, the Vancouver launch, kicking off a month of events across Canada ending in Toronto on 26SEP, is the start of an exciting year of new products, routes and technology designed to help travel professionals navigate the company’s every-growing portfolio of vacation options for consumers.
"Today is the first of our winter launches,” said Montagnese. “We're promoting the sun, but it's not just about the sun, because over the course of the last eight months, we've been working on a lot more products, tours, and destinations. So really, we’re presenting the world today."
At the first ACV DreamMakers on Tour in Vancouver, Montagnese and his sales team rolled out a celebration of new collections, a digital-forward social media campaign, and enhanced self-serve tools to assist the evolving needs of its travel agent partners. There was also a bonus surprise for fans of Sandals Resorts.
In partnership with title sponsors Sandals and Beaches Resorts, Montagnese announced an exclusive perk: free connector flights for customers travelling from Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Halifax connecting through Toronto Pearson International Airport when booking any Sandals Resorts vacation in Jamaica through Air Canada Vacations. The move will shave about $400 off flying through Pearson to Jamaica per ticket.
Jamaica and the entire Caribbean remain extremely popular with Canadian travellers, and that’s reflected in Air Canada Vacations' new winter travel collection. The Air Canada Vacations’ Sun Collection includes a digital sun guide with more than 600 warm-weather travel options to choose from across 60 destinations, plus hundreds of cruise itineraries.
The Collection is part of ACV’s Travel Agent Toolkits, a series of digital brochures featuring step-by-step guides with hotels and flight schedules available at a glance. In addition to the Sun Collection, there are curated guides for Europe and Asia, filtering and matching vacation styles to traveller’s perfect resorts or cruises based on Luxe, Family, Boutique, EcoLabel, Adults Only and LGBTQ2+.
ACV is expanding its tour portfolio to include tours in Asia, including India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand. It is also introducing new European guided tours, Euro beach holidays, urban tours, and, coming soon, multi-country tours.
On the technology side, Air Canada Vacations has developed enhanced self-serve tools available to travel agents via the Manage Your Booking page on aircanadavacations.com. These digital initiatives are built around the evolving needs of travel agent partners, allowing them to serve their customers better and more effectively.
Montagnese noted that these tools allow partners to “work smarter, not harder," and include Insta Quotes for groups, aka GQT, the Groups Quoting Tool. Launched in January 2024, GQT features real-time instant quotes for most sun destinations and hotels and allows agents to link multiple bookings for streamlined management, whether it’s whole vacation packages, or hotels or air only.
Agents can complete bookings online and no longer have to “wait on hold.” They can access a consolidated view of both current and past quotes and create client-friendly PDF versions with a client’s personalized travel information.
Enhanced ePackages offer flexibility and equip travel partners with the tools they need to easily book flight and hotel packages for customers anywhere Air Canada operates.
The Air Canada Vacations Team reiterated its commitment to its Vacation Promise, Cruise Promise and its CareFlex and Carefree programs, which allow customers to travel with peace of mind and provide agents with turnkey tools to support their clients. ACV has also instituted its Travel Agent Advisory Board, opening an important dialogue channel for travel professionals.
With the launch of its new social-first campaign, ACV wants to help travellers dream bigger and see the world by putting Canadians at the forefront.
Using the hashtag #MyVacationMood and tagging @aircanadavacations, ACV is inviting travellers to get into holiday mode and share their vacation mood on social media for a chance to be featured on their social channels.
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