TravelManagers’ Partner Suppliers ‘Rap to the Beat’ for Trivia Night
TravelManagers’ personal travel managers (PTMs), national partnership office (NPO) staff and a handful of partner suppliers joined forces across the country recently, as they tested their general knowledge regionally, in a series of ‘battle of the brains’ style trivia nights.
TravelManagers’ personal travel managers (PTMs), national partnership office (NPO) staff and a handful of partner suppliers joined forces across the country recently, as they tested their general knowledge regionally, in a series of ‘battle of the brains’ style trivia nights.
Hosted by the local state-based business partnership managers, the five regional events held in Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne were attended by over 100 personal travel managers, up to 9 NPO staff and a mix of industry partner suppliers with Allianz Global Assistance attending every event.
Karen Dowling, Business Partnership Manager for Brisbane says the focus of the events were to foster better relationships with PTMs and local industry suppliers.
“Our intention and goal for these evenings were to create networking opportunities between our PTMs and partner suppliers in a relaxed and informal environment. The NPO support and physical presence regionally is also invaluable, and the trivia night provided a fun, and at times highly competitive forum for social interaction.”
Dowling recognizes a trivia evening can be difficult to schedule quality time for suppliers to promote their products without compromising the vivacious energy of the night, so each supplier was asked to provide five product related questions for the trivia quiz.
The Brisbane trivia night however ended up being much more than simply a test of general knowledge, with suppliers showcasing their musical hidden talents.
“My colleague Noree Kahika and I thought it would be fitting to have the suppliers perform a five-minute RAP Song showcasing their individual brand’s unique selling points. It was a novel and fun way for our suppliers to get their brand’s message across to the PTMs in a forum that was both entertaining and light-hearted and yet the presentations were comical, catchy and not easily forgotten.”
The suppliers really got into the swing of things.
“Mark Morrow from Excite Holidays even dressed up as a rap music artist and his song showcased all of Excite Holidays USP’s including their 24 hour, 7 day a week agency support call centre, the in-house agent rewards program and flexible commission rates,” laughs Dowling.
The feedback from suppliers was extremely positive as consistently summed up by Camille Moore, APT Queensland.
“What a fabulous trivia night, everyone had a great time. We look forward to a strong relationship between us and the personal travel managers.”
The PTMs also found the evening extremely valuable from a networking point of view.
“The evening was such good fun and learning more about our partner suppliers in a relaxed way with more time for social interaction was a real win for me,” says Carli Hester, representative for Mount Duneed in Victoria.
TravelManagers’ Executive General Manager Michael Gazal, knows regional gatherings are a winning formula with PTMs.
“An overriding objective of the NPO is to create a sense of family and strong community spirit amongst our PTMs and partner suppliers. We are thrilled these inaugural trivia nights with the opportunity to network with suppliers were a real hit and shows the fantastic camaraderie and community spirit within the TravelManagers’ family.”
With the overwhelming success of the regional trivia nights, Dowling is quick to confirm there is discussion of making these events an annual occurrence.
