Tisson Travel Group Launches in Alberta

You might recognize her name: Tannis Dyrland. During the pandemic, she launched the “F*ck it List” – a collection of bucket-list type trips to get people excited about travelling again, at a time when Canadians couldn’t.

Then there was her Mile High Cocktails, convenient little travel kits with locally sourced ingredients to make multiple cocktails using alcohol served on the plane.

And now, she’s launching a new concept for travel agencies that’s gotten people excited. The Tisson Travel Group officially launches this week in Calgary Alberta with an event Thursday night.

“I didn't think as an agent in Canada, it was actually possible to be an agent on your own without a host agency,” Dyrland told TravelPulse late last week. “I think that we're led to believe that they are a requirement.”

Dyrland says she began mapping out her business with her “right hand man” Ryan McElroy of Travel Agency Tribes after realizing opening her own agency was possible.

“The big catalyst for me really was that my host agency was in Ontario, there weren’t any in Alberta. We were always at the mercy of Ontario; all our suppliers, our direct go-to’s were in Ontario, all the national account managers were based in Ontario.

It became a challenge to have them fully understand the trials and tribulations that we have in Alberta with lack of lift and lack of support, and then you factor in the time change. What I wanted to do was create a way that Alberta could be supported with the fantastic people in our backyard.”

Word has been spreading fast about Tisson Travel Group already; Dyrland says she’s been overwhelmed with the number of applications to join her team.  While growth is certainly a strong consideration for a long-term plan, right now she’s focused on empowering the women who are working with her.

“The travel agent industry is primarily women. Yes, there are men, but for women for whom travel is our full-time jobs, this is our bread and butter. It’s what we’re passionate about, it’s what we want to do.  And everybody was feeling a little bit defeated working in a host-agency format, whereas now they can own their own business.”

Dyrland’s says she’s not looking for quantity, she’s looking for quality and her team are all established Alberta agents. They are agents who produce and have great relationships, who “really just want to be in control of their own business.”

If Tisson Travel Group is already causing a stir with its launch, there’s a couple more elements that might as well.  Service fee splits and booking engines – or in this case, lack thereof.

“Charging service fees has been a hot topic, especially since COVID. And it’s important that these agents value their time because nobody else is going to value you if you don't value yourself.

What's happened is we've really pushed in our industry to charge service fees. We’ve really encouraged agents to get comfortable putting that out there and requesting that. But then the host agencies are taking percentages of that split. That's wrong.”

Dyrland says Tisson will charge an overall processing fee of less than 4% with an annual fee of $499 per year and $69 monthly. Agents can also create their own preferred suppliers (via TRAVELSAVERS) based on who they build relationships with and use consistently.

There also won’t be any booking engines on the company website because she wants clients to come to her agents, the experts. 

“Our sites have an AI component to them to help clients in their search, but it redirects to the agent. Nobody will be booking on our sites, because that defeats the purpose of us in this industry saying we're valuable.”

“I'm not here to dismiss the host agency, I do believe that they have their place. I feel that as our industry evolves --which has felt very stagnant but is evolving in so many ways -- we're learning so many things,” says Dyrland. “I think that the pandemic period taught us many things and as we evolve, we're going to realize that we do have control of what we want to do.

I fully intend to expend my energy doing this to build awareness for Western Canada in our industry," she adds. 

"I really just wanted to create a community of agents, not a host agency because I'm not a host agency. I'm really a mentor, a support person. I do provide all the platforms, but they all own their own businesses. And that's what it's a about; I provide them the connections and the supports for Alberta in Western Canada.

Right now, I have five women in Alberta who now feel extremely empowered to be creative and to design what their business needs to look like for them.”

 

 

 

 

 

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