Toronto – Horizon & Co., one of Canada’s most established and respected travel companies, has launched a comprehensive new 2004 manual for travel professionals. “It has been a challenging couple of years for the entire industry”, says Markus Schale, Horizon’s President, “and with the transition to a new management team, we felt that it was important to communicate our belief in the value of travel professionals.”

Horizon has enriched its commitment to travel professionals through a variety of initiatives and enhancements, including:

•    Travel Professional Manual – Horizon has created a comprehensive manual laying out all of the benefits, policies and procedures to ensure that travel professionals know exactly where they stand.
•    Marketing Partners – Horizon has created a direct mail marketing program to support travel professionals, including a commitment to protect agency databases and guarantee credit for any bookings generated by the program.
•    Preferred Agencies – Horizon has enhanced the benefits of being a Preferred Agency to include richer commissions (12% -16%), educational trip discounts up to 25%, a dedicated liaison, and access to marketing support.
•    Rewarding Performance – Horizon has reviewed all of its policies to ensure that travel professionals are rewarded for the work put into bookings. Travel professional will earn overrides if they meet the performance targets, they will be paid commissions on cancellation penalties, and they will earn commission on everything from single supplements to insurance products.

“We view the relationship with travel professionals as a business partnership with benefits to both sides,” says Norman Howe, Horizon’s VP of Business Development, “and we want to ensure that we are doing everything possible to uphold our end of the relationship. While the most important commitment to travel professionals is to exceed the expectations of their clients, we have also set ourselves the goal of exceeding the expectations of our travel partners.”


For more information, please contact Norman Howe, Horizon’s VP of Business Development, at 1-800-678-1147 or nhowe@horizon-holidays.com