19 hours ago
Technology vendor aims to upend the host agency model
Jeremy Sulek, CEO of Atlanta-based host agency Jetset World Travel, has founded a new venture: Brava, a software solution for travel advisors that cuts out host agencies and enables advisors to collect 100% commission on bookings with a faster payout.
Yes, that's right: The CEO of a host agency has designed software to cut out host agencies.
"Hosts almost certainly are going to fight Brava, but it will be based on their fear of losing business rather than what might be best for the advisor," Sulek said.
Brava was born of Sulek's belief that many host agencies are set up to benefit agency owners more than advisors.
"I do truly believe that the systems are out of whack, and that currently agency owners get way to much benefit and credit and financial percentage of the business, when the travel advisor -- specifically, the independent contractor -- is doing most, if not all, of the work," he said. "Right now, I don't want to call names out, but I see about 75% of my peers -- other host agencies -- purely taking advantage of this system."
A slow process of getting paid
Sulek did name-drop some hosts he feels are putting their advisors first -- Brownell, Embark and SmartFlyer among them -- but believes there is a fundamental problem with the way the host agency system works and how advisors get paid. He believes many hosts are simply adding advisors for the end benefit to the host of increased sales (overrides are often not shared, he argued), and meanwhile, the payment process for advisors takes too long.
"The way the world works right now, everybody's piecemealing the existing way things work to the best of their ability," he said. "But ultimately, it's a very slow, difficult, nontransparent system on how an advisor can actually get paid."
He used a hotel booking as an example. An advisor plans a client's December trip in August. They do all the work and book everything. The client travels, which kicks off the payment process. Typically, the supplier will pay sometime between 30 and 60 days post-travel. Suppliers often remit payments to third-party payment providers, which often sit on payments for another month.
Then, Sulek said, the payment makes its way to the host agency, which might sit on the payment for another month or two before passing it on to the advisor.
By Sulek's estimation, an August booking might mean payment in March or April of the next year because there are so many steps to get the commission in the advisor's hands.
"There's no reason that the commission check has to go through all of these middle people," he said. "That was the problem I originally set out to solve."
Sulek has been working on Brava for about a year on the belief that advisors shouldn't have to go through host agencies to receive their pay, but should instead align with a host agency for the services it provides.
Brava is a platform that creates a single record of a booking and the commission owed to the advisor, where advisors and suppliers see the same numbers (this also solves a common problem wherein suppliers often know which agency is responsible for bookings but not which advisor, he said, leaving all credit with the agency's owner and none with the advisors actually booking clients).
Right now, Sulek said, his host agency manually matches bookings and commission payments when the commissions come in, then remits them to advisors; that can be automated, and is with Brava.
Essentially, it's modernizing the host agency function of paying out commissions, he said.
With Brava, advisors keep 100% of their commission and receive payment as soon as funds are available from the supplier, Sulek said. But more importantly, they also own their own bookings.
"Suppliers now have this alternative method of a better process of paying advisors directly," he said.
Opportunity knocks
Brava is still in beta testing and expected to open more widely in the next 30 days. Its rollout will come in phases.
"What we can't do right away is flip a switch and ask Hilton to change its entire commission-paying process through us," Sulek said. "But there will be a point, I believe, that with a certain percentage of the market agreeing that this is way the industry needs to work, it becomes highly, highly beneficial for any supplier to update their process."
Sulek admits the idea behind Brava is new, and he's unsure how fast adoption will happen. Education around what the product is and why it's good for the end advisor will be necessary, he said.
"My degree of confidence that this is the way the industry will eventually look is very, very high," he said. "My question is, over what time period will it get there?"
He also said he expects pushback from host agencies, but believes advisors "should book through the path that is most beneficial for their business." That could mean booking through a host that has a negotiated rate with a supplier, or directly with the supplier in some cases, he said.
"ICs are independent and should never be able to be controlled by a host," he added. "A lot of hosts act only in their own self-interest in which they try to demand all sales go through them, but the reality is they do not have control over that."
Final pricing has not yet been determined, but Sulek said the monthly cost to use Brava to collect commissions will be under $200 per month.
When Brava does open commercially, advisors will sign up for an account and enter their banking information, he said. Once they've made a booking, the booking confirmation can be forwarded to their account, where information will be uploaded into Brava's database. Then, suppliers can pay advisors directly via Brava, straight into the advisor's bank account.
Sulek remains CEO of Jetset in addition to his work with Brava.
