Flight Centre Travel Group USA announces new destination management partners in key destinations for USA travelers
Flight Centre Travel Group USA announces new destination management partners in key destinations for USA travelers
In June, Flight Centre Travel Group made the difficult decision to close their Discova operations in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica and exit the destination management sector in Central America and the Caribbean. The business was first founded as Olympus Tours in 1994 and was acquired by the Flight Centre Travel Group in 2017. It was rebranded to Discova in 2019.
Discova Americas has struggled since the pandemic, and it had become increasingly difficult to justify the high costs of maintaining their operations. Therefore, the Group has decided to re-focus leadership and investment on the growing and profitable Discova Asia business, positioning Discova to become a leading Asia specialist Destination Management Company (DMC).
With this news, our Flight Centre Travel Group USA business has taken the opportunity to reevaluate our needs in each market and procure new DMCs for each of our key markets that were formerly served by Discova: Mexico, Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.
We are happy to announce the following DMCs have been selected to serve our mutual customers:
- Lomas Travel and Trafictours will serve our customers across Mexico
- Turissimo Caribe Excursions (part of Trafictours) will serve our customers in the Dominican Republic
- Swiss Travel will serve our customers in Costa Rica
Our choice of new DMC partners reflects the commitment to servicing our mutual customers at the highest possible levels. Thank you to those advisors and customers that provided recommendations to us, we greatly took your feedback into consideration.
Our decision to procure two DMCs in Mexico (our most traveled destination) comes with thoughtful reflection on how to best support our mutual customers that span across both FIT & Group bookings – as well as wanting to provide a choice of provider to our advisor community. Both providers will be loaded in Helio and labeled by provider name so that you can select the provider you prefer.
Operational Transition Process
Our 3 new suppliers are in the process of being loaded into Helio – and will be available for sale no later than July 25th. We will continue to update you as the suppliers come live into the system – but rest assured between now and then you can continue to book the Discova product showing available in Helio and your booking will be transferred to the new operator in the destination. Please note in Mexico, existing Discova bookings are being transferred to Lomas Travel.
Discova will continue to operate and service all existing reservations (FIT & Groups) for both transportation and day tours that arrive and depart through July 31st, 2024. If you have a booking that arrives in destination prior to July 31st, but has a return transfer after July 31st, that booking will be passed in full to the new provider.
Existing transportation and day tour bookings (FIT & Groups) that are traveling beyond the July 31st date will be transferred to the new provider on your behalf by our support team. All pricing will be protected at the originally booked price. For FIT (Helio) bookings, if the new price is lower than the price you originally confirmed, the price of the product will be adjusted to match the original price booked via Discova, with the residual returned to you as additional commission according to the terms of your commission levels for gross price adjustments.
The transition of new bookings will be complete no later than July 25th. Please refrain from rebooking your own transfers - If you have any questions or need further support with your bookings please contact us via Helio support chat, email or phone.
For all bookings being transitioned to the new provider – you will need to provide your customers with new booking documents that reflect this change. The updated documents will include information on where to locate the provider at the airport and all typical information for tours and transfers, reflective of the new provider.
Over the coming weeks we will be scheduling webinars with an introduction to each of our new DMCs partners and we look forward to sharing more regarding our new partnerships with you very soon.
