TPI FOCUSSED ON GROWTH

Travel Professionals International (TPI) held its 2013 Annual Conference, “Focus,” at the Westin Wall Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia recently. The event featured five keynote speakers including two highly-regarded sales trainers. Attending the conference were TPI advisors, staff, and industry partners from across North America who were invited to focus on sharing best practices for achieving the true potential of travel advisor businesses through properly planned and executed sales and social media strategies. Morris Chia, president & CEO, presented the opening keynote where he and Tim Morgan, vice-president, expanded on TPI’s renewed focus in three core areas: the recruitment, development, and retention of superb and passionate support staff and advisors, the implementation of sales-centric resources and initiatives to help grow advisors’ businesses, and the roll-out of best-in-class technologies developed in-house and with industry-leading technology partners to improve support staff and advisor productivity. In addition to the learning and networking components, each year TPI selects a Canadian charity for the Giving Back portion of its annual conference. Breakfast Club of Canada received donations from hundreds of TPI advisors, staff, and industry partners in support of their programs which provide meals for children. Through donors’ generosity, $5,000 was raised, with TPI matching donations dollar for dollar. A cheque for $10,000 (the equivalent of 10,000 meals) was presented to Breakfast Club of Canada by Chia. Go to http:// www.tpi.ca for more.