It has been a busy month over at TravelManagers.

Not only did the at-home agency run its first in-person conference since the start of the pandemic, it has just recorded another record-breaking month, with the average value of sales per personal travel manager (PTM) in August up by 47 per cent compared with the same month in 2019.

However, its most significant update of late has been the retirement of industry legend and TravelManager’s chairman Barry Mayo.

Last week marked Mayo’s last AGM with the company and saw many tearful goodbyes as he announced he would be leaving his role in October.

Mayo’s career has spanned more than 60 years and saw him hold top-end management roles with KLM, Garuda, Insight Vacations, Qantas, Helloworld and CT Partners, just to name a few.

We caught up with Mayo to pick his brain one last time before his retirement.

Travel Weekly: Now that you’re retiring, who will take up the reigns as TravelManager’s chairman? 

Barry Mayo: The new chairman will be House of Travel New Zealand’s CEO Bruce Parton.

Bruce took over as chairman for the July board meeting, and we’ve had this little crossover period from now until the end of October so we can have some continuity through the handover.

TW: It looks like you’re leaving TravelManagers in pretty good shape. How has recovery progressed? 

Mayo: It’s been going well. The average value of the PTMs’ sales in the first two quarters of 2022 compared with the equivalent quarters in 2019 were up 53 per cent from January to March 2022 and 129 per cent from April to May.

For the first two months of this quarter, they’re at 135 per cent of the July-August 2019 sales.

It’s exceeding expectations. But as for planning, it’s more like forecasting.

Everything’s dependent on circumstances, which will be out of our planning control, depending on pricing in the marketplace, depending on capacity. And there will be unforeseen variables at the moment.

TW: Unexpected variables aside, what are the main issues facing travel at the moment? 

Mayo: I think travel’s recovery is going to be influenced greatly by the different segments of the industry getting back to capacity with staffing. That’s gonna be the big inhibitor, I think going forward.

The main issue with capacity is airlines, but we’re seeing good demand for cruises. Coach touring has been a little slow, but I think that’s expected.

Barry Mayo speaking at Travel Weekly’s Travel DAZE in 2018

TW: What are your main career highlights? 

Mayo: In delaying my retirement from 2020 to 2022, my two highlights because of these two additional years at TravelManagers are firstly witnessing consumers acknowledging the quality of our personal travel managers with the sales that have resulted from this confidence in our PTMs’ knowledge and expertise.

My other highlight has been the launch of TravelManagers Customer Fund (TCF) as the final component in our industry-leading consumer ‘Peace of Mind’ promise.

This is the final component in an eight-year project following the termination of the government-legislated Travel Compensation Fund and as far as I can tell no other travel agent offers a more transparent and effective system of customer protection.

I believe this is something travellers will value more highly than ever in this post-pandemic travel environment and will be a powerful inducement for consumers to book with one of our PTMs.

Overall, though, it’s been travelling and the experiences that go with travelling, whether it’s culture, food, or meeting people.

I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve worked with some great teams of people in different businesses, some of those people, I’ve worked within two or three different jobs over the years.

I think one of the most important things in life is the people you meet whether it’s in business or anything else.

And I’ve just been very fortunate to work with lots of good people.

TW: Do you think that there’s something that makes people working in the travel industry stand out?

Mayo: It’s probably their love of the job, more than anything.

I guess if you’re an accountant, it’s difficult to be in love with being an accountant.

Most people in the travel industry are here because travel has been a major interest in their life, and so is assisting to fulfil, to a large degree, their client’s dreams.

TW: And what have been the key learnings that you’ve taken away from your career in travel?

Mayo: Probably the most important one is that you never stop learning. You’re always learning.

I mean, there were a lot of learnings that came out of the COVID experience. And you can never assume that there’s not more to be learned. And I’d probably say the key learning is the most consistent thing in business is change.

TW: And would you say the biggest change has been COVID?

Mayo: Actually, I’d say it was automation.  When I first started in the industry, when I was with KLM, it installed its first computer. And that computer was housed in an aircraft hangar, it was so huge. That computer today has probably got less power than a phone.

All our reservations were manual. All that communication was quite tough.

COVID was a unique experience, certainly, but I don’t think it will have had the significance of automation in the long term.

TW: What does the ongoing development of automation look like? Is it going to be AI?

Mayo: I’d say it’s definitely a part of it, but I don’t see AI replacing human interaction.

I think that there’ll be people that will always want to use the most convenient and quickest way of doing things, but there’ll be other people that will want to be guided, and will want to be sure of the situation that they’re going to be facing in their travels and will want reassurance and a backstop if things aren’t going quite to plan.

Travellers like knowing they’ve got a contact that they know is going to be available to help them, especially if they’re stranded overseas and that in itself was demonstrated many, many times throughout COVID.

TW: What’s next for you?

Mayo: Oh, we’ve got plans to travel regularly over the next few years. We’re headed to Italy in the new year to see the Dolomites, then we want to do Sicily and Malta.

TW: Do you have any advice for the travel industry that you’d like to pass on? 

Mayo: Have faith in the bounce back, don’t give up and be optimistic.