For an industry still shaking the habit of caution, six per cent growth is enough to draw attention not because it’s spectacular, but because it’s increasingly rare.
As much of the travel sector edges into 2026 with one eye on cost pressures and another on consumer confidence, TravelManagers is heading towards the end of the financial year with projected year-on-year growth of about 6.3 per cent. It’s not a victory lap. But it is progress, and in this market, that counts.
Chief operating officer Grant Campbell is careful not to oversell it. He knows the numbers sit against a broader backdrop of softer growth across much of the industry, where volume has returned faster than certainty.
“This stands out against a backdrop of more modest growth reported across much of the industry,” Campbell says.
The difference, he suggests, is not so much how many people are travelling, but how they are travelling and how much they’re willing to spend.
Total spend per booking rose by close to 10 per cent over the past year, a shift that reflects a return to longer, more considered trips rather than a rush for cheap seats and quick getaways. Small group touring was up 38 per cent, cruise holidays climbed 12 per cent, and long-haul destinations continued to recover as confidence slowly returned.
TravelManagers’ Chief Operating Officer, Grant Campbell
Africa, once a niche sell for most Australian agencies, emerged as a quiet achiever, posting 12 per cent growth within the TravelManagers network during 2025.
Campbell is quick to point out that these results don’t materialise on their own. He credits the company’s national network of personal travel managers, supported by its National Partnership Office, for maintaining momentum through a year that demanded more than autopilot.
Over the past 12 months, the company delivered 164 webinar training sessions and supported 205 famil opportunities, while continuing to invest in technology designed to reduce friction rather than add another system for advisors to learn.
That investment has become increasingly important as the home-based advisor model grows more crowded. More choice, Campbell argues, has sharpened the need for networks to clearly articulate what they actually offer beyond independence.
“With more players than ever in the home-based travel advisor sector, we believe our continued investment in technology, training and personalised support clearly sets TravelManagers apart,” he says.
Recruitment, however, is not framed as a numbers game. Instead, Campbell leans into advocacy — the idea that satisfied advisors do much of the selling on the company’s behalf.
“Our PTMs are our strongest advocates,” he says. “The experience we provide for new advisors shapes whether they stay, grow and recommend the network to others.”
That sense of community was on display at the company’s annual national conference in August 2025, which attracted more than 500 attendees, including advisors, supplier partners and media.
Amid the workshops and presentations, there was also time set aside for something less transactional. Delegates spent a morning at a local school in Nusa Dua, repainting classrooms and improving facilities, an exercise that was as much about perspective as it was about paintbrushes.
Technology remains one of the network’s more tangible differentiators. In 2025, its in-house wholesaler, Fastbook, launched TripBuilder, a single sign-on platform that aggregates hotel and land content and includes an AI-assisted itinerary-planning tool. The aim, Campbell says, is not novelty but fewer clicks, fewer workarounds, and less manual assembly for complex itineraries.
Advisors also continue to use the network’s dedicated B2C cruise platform, maintaining a consistent cruise presence without the overheads of individual site management.
The launch of Corporate Travel Specialists has added another layer, allowing advisors to operate across both leisure and corporate travel under the same umbrella, depending on where their client base sits.
All of it builds on a milestone reached last year, when TravelManagers surpassed $500 million in annual turnover for the first time in its two-decade history.
It’s a figure that signals scale, but Campbell insists the focus remains narrower.
“As we head into 2026, we remain focused on empowering PTMs to deliver exceptional outcomes for their clients while growing profitable, sustainable businesses.”
In an industry still learning how to move forward without sprinting, TravelManagers’ progress suggests that measured steps taken consistently can still get you there.
by Jill Walsh – (c) 2026.
Read time: 4 minutes.
About the Writer.
Jill Walsh has always kept a pen close and a suitcase closer. She started out on media releases, then learned the trade properly by escorting press trips around the world, discovering which stories travel well and which need a sharper edit.
Before long, she wasn’t just promoting destinations, she was representing them, translating civic ambition and local pride into words people actually wanted to read. These days, semi-retired and happily so, Jill has traded departure boards for deadlines, joining old friend and colleague Stephen at Global Travel Media on a casual basis.
Her patch is the business end of wanderlust: balance sheets, route maps, tender wins and the numbers that quietly decide where travellers go. She writes with dry humour, clean prose and an old-school respect for facts, a steady voice when the market starts shouting.
