Helloworld online CEO “puts to bed” turbulent start

A cute brown Dachshund coming out from under the covers of a white bed.

Initiatives including a mobile app and collaborative agent workshops have helped Helloworld.com.au win round hordes of sceptical agents, says chief executive Jeremy Reitman.

Speaking to Travel Weekly at the TRAVELTech conference in Sydney, Reitman admitted that getting agents on board had been his major challenge since taking up the top role of the agency group’s online arm in February 2014 during a time of major upheaval and ill feeling.

He acknowledged that there was “no question” the closure of the group’s WA-based online arm Best Flights could have been handled better, but said Helloworld.com.au had made such significant strides that it was now time to “put to bed” all the former negativity.

“We’ve proved ourselves – we’ve got the traffic, we’ve got the numbers and we’ve got the revenue coming through,” he said.

Instead of cannibalising sales, the new website works in synergy with the stores and has in fact opened up Helloworld to an entirely different, younger demographic, according to Reitman who was confident that its benefits were now recognised across the network.

“Agents are excited about the initiatives that we’ve got supporting their businesses as well,” he continued.

These include regular workshops with agents to share ideas and also the new Helloworld mobile app which launched in July, but has now been tweaked to enable members and franchisees to earn commission on any booking made by their clients using the app.

Reitman, formerly of Expedia, explained pushing the app out to consumers posed an immense challenge, particularly when going head to head with the existing apps of other online players, which had larger budgets to work with.

But the online team decided to leverage the Helloworld network to get the app in front of customers and get them actually using it. Before customers leave the store after making a booking, agents are urged to sell the app to the customer and explain that any last minute travel requirements, such as a hotel at short notice, or a car rental can be instantly arranged using the app and paid in Australian dollars without needing to contact the agent.

Agents receive 9% on any hotel bookings made by their clients through the app, 3% on air and 7% on car rentals.

“We just had to encourage our agents and give them some kind of benefit for them to encourage their customers to download it. This is what we’ve done.”

The response to the new offering has been “amazing”, according to Reitman.

Now his attention will move to the next major challenge – growing awareness of the Helloworld.com.au brand.

“If we were to remove all of the marketing initiatives we have through the online business and take out all of the noise, the online brand is not growing as fast as I would like it to grow,” he admitted.

The company is working hard to drive direct traffic to the site with marketing campaigns such as the recent #HelloworldRELAY which saw 80 “influencers” post photos taken from around the world to Instagram over 36 hours designed to bring people to the site. More initiatives like this look set to follow.

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

Latest comments

Amy says:
October 20, 2015 at 12:26 pm
I am glad to see that i am not the only one that is able to see through the constant smoke screens being spewed out from the overpaid executives at HLO. Jeremy, i am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but, blind Freddy could attract millions of visitors to any web site if they spent $75M in advertising and marketing, and $20M in communication and technology, the big question that has to be asked, what nett profit have you made the company? You seem to have forgotten to mention that little point? Then again, did you manage to make any in your time at Expedia? That is a lot of money spent on promoting an Orbitz, soon to be Expedia, white label. As i have said previously, the very small number of remaining branded franchises are lining up to leave, the first moment they get, including me.
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Doubting Tom says:
October 16, 2015 at 7:47 pm
Nice try Jeremy .. but unfortunately you just can’t mask the fact that Helloworld online is and will continue to be a total, complete and unmitigated disaster. The truth will out eventually, as it will do slowly but surely with every other aspect of the Helloword debacle. And did you say Best Flights “could have been handled better” ? THAT must be the understatement of the century !!
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Confused says:
October 16, 2015 at 1:27 pm
I personally will never understand why a profitable business was shut down, but the dishonesty and disrespect shown to loyal Best Flights customers and staff it was no surprise to anyone else they didn’t get much support. But those Best Flights supporters can now find it amusing that Helloworld online technology is now owned by Jeremy former employer Expedia, no cruise engines (well at least one that was not a failure and disappeared), no tour engines no ownership of the IP no Australian based support and we all know the painful truth behind dealing with overseas call centres and it is all over product review just see how many terrible comments they have. I personally would be rolling around laughing if Expedia turned the technology off now they own Orbitz!! Where would that leave them? Especially if rumours that helloworld.com.au produced 2 million fraud bookings last year have any truth behind them. But I am sure their members and franchises are asking why are you going on about online why can’t you just drive more business through my door, what is being done to increase HW share price, who is going to be the new CEO? You know who is going to run the company, just minor details.
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#helloworldRELAY brand awareness helloworld helloworld.com.au jeremy reitman