The state of Australian travel after FY26
Volume has flattened, the destination mix is rotating hard, and reporting season shows where the value went… and where it is going next. Australian travel has reached an inflection point. Outbound volume has stopped delivering the easy growth of the post-pandemic recovery, but that does not mean demand has weakened. It has redistributed. Australians are […]
Why the Australian travel industry’s talent problem is a leadership problem
The workforce has recovered almost everywhere except travel distribution. The missing layer is management, and recruiting harder will not rebuild it. In 2013, I sat down with a mentor through a program called TIME, the Travel Industry Mentor Experience. I was mid-career, ambitious and reasonably certain I knew what I was doing. Twenty-four hours of […]
The Great Realignment
Why the next decade of travel insurance will be won through distribution, not product. An analysis of consolidation, embedded distribution and the new economics of competing in the Australian and New Zealand travel insurance market. Executive summary The travel insurance sector is moving through its most significant period of structural change in more than a […]
Storytelling as Commercial Infrastructure
Travel insurance rarely fails at the point of claim. It fails at the point of explanation. Closing that gap is not a marketing exercise – it is proposition design, and it belongs on the commercial agenda. The takeaway for leadership Product value in this category is most often lost in translation, not in design […]
When Growth Stalls, Structure Matters More Than Effort
Growth rarely stalls because people stopped trying. It stalls because the commercial architecture stopped supporting them. More activity applied to a structural problem buys motion, not momentum. The takeaway for leadership The instinctive response to slowing growth – more reporting, more campaigns, more pressure – treats a structural problem as a motivational one. Five points […]
ANZ Market Entry: Why International Brands Get It Wrong
Australia and New Zealand look familiar to international entrants – and that familiarity is the trap. ANZ is not a smaller version of another market. Entry here is not expansion; it is recalibration. The takeaway for leadership ANZ is commercially disciplined, relationship-led and highly concentrated: a small number of networks, groups and platforms shape access […]
Why Enterprise RFPs Fail Before Submission
Most enterprise bids are not lost in the document. They are lost in the weeks before it – in the alignment the business did or did not do. Sophisticated buyers are not scoring your writing; they are scoring your coherence. The takeaway for leadership Enterprise RFPs are treated as document exercises, but the outcome is […]
Post-Merger Distribution: Where Revenue Leakage Really Occurs
Acquisition value is negotiated at board level but realised – or lost – in distribution. Leakage rarely announces itself. It accumulates quietly in overlapping agreements, conflicting incentives and channels left to compete with each other. The takeaway for leadership The real test of an acquisition begins after completion: value is protected in the distribution architecture […]
Strategy Rarely Fails on Paper
By the time a transformation reaches approval, the analysis is usually sound. What fails is the passage from intent to architecture – and in distribution-heavy sectors, that failure is expensive, fast. The takeaway for leadership Most transformations do not fail in conception. They fail in translation – between executive intent and the structures the front […]
Strategy vs Execution: Why Transformation Fails in Travel & Insurance
Strategy Rarely Fails on Paper In travel and insurance, most transformation strategies are well conceived. Market analysis is thorough. Growth opportunities are identified. Distribution gaps are mapped. Financial models are approved. On paper, the strategy makes sense. Yet months later, performance has not shifted. Initiatives stall. Teams revert to legacy behaviour. Partners lose confidence. Leadership […]