Recently the national flag carrier celebrated travel agents, recognising their pivotal role in driving airline sales over the inaugural top 10 travel agents performance awards. During the awards ceremony, the airline’s CEO, Lulu Rasebotsa, stated that it was crucial to establish such a relationship with these stakeholders as the move will help boost sales, which at the end of the day becomes a “win-win situation for everyone.” She added that the significance of the inaugural awards was to ensure that the behind the scenes hard work of the travel agents did not get overlooked. "We are hosting these awards to recognise our top performing travel agents and to us at Air Botswana travel agents are not just stakeholders. We are partners. "They are an extension of Air Botswana," Rasebotsa said.
The CEO emphasised that travel agents should be lauded for the impeccable job they do because without them most airlines would not be standing and thriving. "We are very grateful for the travel agents because you bring in those numbers, you pull those seats and this is why we exist. We are because you are to us so it gives us joy to be celebrating you," she added. Rasebotsa also challenged the travel agents to be more competitive amongst themselves as not only will it bring clientele to them, but also contribute to the ticket sales of Air Botswana. "Remember in the field of competition, the more you compete the more it ignites me because you bring in the numbers. "So I think that the ones that are in the top three this year would push the rest to make sure that they are not outperformed and I know everyone would want to be in the top because of this," she said.
The CEO hoped that this would increase the sales especially with the increase in frequencies of flights, and the establishment of new flight routes like the newly launched Gaborone to Durban flights. The inaugural top 10 travel agents performance in no particular order are; Skylink Travel, Galaxy Travel, Harvey World Travel, Concorde Travel, First Class Travel, ATnT Travel, Skyways Travel, Vintage Travel and Tours, Travel Star, and Travel Trends. Position one went to Skyways Travel, which was awarded eight complimentary tickets while position two went to Travel Trends who were awarded six tickets and third place went to Vintage Travel and Tours whom were given four tickets.
