“We fought tooth and nail to get agent trust”: Excite co-founder

“We fought tooth and nail to get agent trust”: Excite co-founder

There will be no resting on laurels for the boys behind Excite Holidays, despite having a successful 15th birthday celebration recently.

Instead, as Executive Director, Nic Stavropoulos, told Travel Weekly, it’s about pushing the envelope just that little bit further.

“We have much more to do. We’re not finished,” Stavropoulos told TW.

“It feels like the business is just starting today.”

Back in 2002, the process of building trust with travel agents was tough for Excite Holidays. And at our recent Travel DAZE conference, Stavropoulos told the audience if they hadn’t lost some of their focus, they might’ve been even bigger today.

As Stavropoulos explained, this was a time when paper airfare tickets were king, and getting an agent to accept an e-ticket was a hard slog.

“It took years to gain the agents’ trust and have them adopt an online booking,” Stavropoulos said.

“I remember people wouldn’t travel on an e-ticket. So it was about gaining their trust.

“We saw it globally. It was all about challenging the norm – why should agents sell stale product when they can access dynamic rates online?”

Stavropoulos admitted that being independent has “always been a challenge for us”.

“It was very hard times early in order to gain trust,” he said.

“This took years – much longer than anyone would have expected.

“We find that there are a few trusted channels, and we’ve fought tooth and nail to gain the agents’ trust and be one of those preferred channels.”

That approach and work ethic has trickled down from management, Stavropoulos added.

“We don’t do it by halves here at Excite – I don’t in my life – it’s either all in, or not. We don’t like to lose.

“There is a philosophy in
 the business that everything stems from the top down.

“We don’t accept no – a way to do the business, a way to make it happen. Don’t accept mediocrity.”

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