Angela Walsh, CEO and founder of FROSCH Ireland, was elected President of the ITAA yesterday at the Association’s AGM in the Morrison Hotel, Dublin,
Angela Walsh, a prominent corporate travel expert from Cork and an active member of the Irish Travel Agents Associations, has been elected as the President of the ITAA, only the woman to hold this position in the association;s history since its foundation in 1970.
With 25 years of experience in running a successful Global Travel Management Company, Angela is now dedicated to giving back by sharing her knowledge and helping the industry adapt to the changing landscape.
In her new role as President, Angela aims to grow the ITAA membership and provide support to existing members, thereby enhancing the credibility and reputation of the Irish travel industry. She says she believes in the continued role of travel agents, citing their ability to invest, adapt, and offer cost-effective solutions to their clients.
At the AGM, Emma McHugh was elected as Treasurer, and several other professionals were appointed to the ITAA board. The CEO of ITAA, Clare Dunne, expressed her well wishes for Angela’s presidency and thanked the outgoing President, Paul Hackett, for his dedicated service during a challenging time for the travel industry.
Angela’s term as President marks an exciting opportunity for the travel trade to further evolve and embrace the changing marketplace, including advancements in technology, empowering staff members, and promoting sustainability. With her passion and commitment, she and the new Board will work with the industry to ensure continued success and growth for Irish travel agents.
She paid tribute to predecessor Paul Hackett: “Paul served during an unpredictable time of travel bans, strikes and weather warnings but continued to voice travel agents’ concerns to the public and government. His two-year term was hugely successful in supporting the Irish travel industry and his passion for the Association is appreciated by all.”
This is Angela Walsh’s acceptance speech:
Friends in travel,
I am honoured to have been nominated and accepted as the 23rd president of the Irish Travel Agents Association, appropriately for the year 2023, on August 23rd <check>.
I would like to start by paying tribute to my predecessor. The last two years have been the most difficult in the history of the industry and of the association. We needed leadership, and Paul Hackett provided that. We needed to be nimble, to be ready to react to unpredictable and arbitrary changes, and Paul and his board facilitated that.
At times it seemed the future, not just of the association, but of the entire formal travel trade sector, was under threat. Our outgoing president provided the skills, the temperament and the leadership that was required in a crisis.
The industry I entered would be unrecognisable today, as unrecognisable as the industry was when the Association raised its sails in the 1970s. As the industry changed its shape, so has the ITAA.
In the face of pandemic, the ITAA had the courage to cast aside any hint of disunity. They smoothed over the divisions that can be found in any industry body that represents businesses in competition with each other and, equally importantly, with non members.
Having come through such an existential crisis, the greatest in the history of the ITAA, the industry has never been as unified.
Unity brings strength. But unity is hard won and must be tended if it is not to be squandered. That is the new task facing us as I embark on my term as president.
The recovery is bringing, and will bring, another set of challenges.
These, too, are often arbitrary and unpredictable.
The pace of technological change is bewildering. Changes that once took months to implement are happening overnight. Every morning we wake up to find our supply chains, our ways of doing business, our relationships, and our information and mercantile channels have been transformed.
As travel agents, we can sometimes underestimate of how important our role is, in distribution, in soaking up the complicated bits of the business and, most importantly of all, in representing the consumer.
We are relevant, I would say more relevant than ever, in today’s travel world.
Consumers are bewildered by the pace of change and the variety of choices they face. Our role has always been to advise them, to bring them the benefit of our great service and knowledge. Our role today is also increasingly to advocate for them, to make sure they get the service they deserve in an efficient and respectful manner. As long as we remember that, our position in the industry is secure.
The expectations of our customers are evolving as fast as the requirements of our suppliers. These are the people who need us more than ever before, but they also expect us to offer the technology that they have become familiar with on other platforms.
We need to embrace the tech revolution and add technology to our armoury. We need, as an association, to make sure that our skill sets are up to the challenges that we face and can rise to.
We need to focus on our area of expertise and be brave in the choices we make for our business going forward.
We need to empower our people to move up, to give them the tools and the confidence and then get out of the way.
We need to join the conversation on climate change. It can no longer be just a catch phrase. We need to let our customers know where we stand and what we are doing to make sure they can see the planet and save it at the same time without guilt or ambiguity.
Once again, we need to be nimble, to be ready to react to the unpredictable changes that lie ahead.
The great constant in travel is change itself. The task I face is to embrace this change, to lead the association, to lead the industry as a whole and making sure that our voice as travel agents is not just heard, but is listened to and relevant in a fast changing world.
Let us make that journey together. As your president I will offer you the same passion, excitement and energy as when I first started in travel.
If we stick together, we can be nimble, we can be quick.
We can keep the customer satisfied and the supplier as well.
We can build on what we achieved when we had to survive.
Now we can thrive.
