In this series, we ask top industry execs and marketers across the country about their biggest fears and concerns. What is giving top marketers fitful sleeps these days? This week, we caught up with Susana Gomes, the director of marketing at Flight Centre Canada, as the travel company celebrates 30 years in the country and the launch of a downtown Toronto flagship location. 

At Flight Centre, Gomes drives the strategic marketing plan for Canada to align with the global efforts of the brand. She leads the national marketing team and oversees the advertising budget and the execution and optimization of all above-the-line campaigns across TV, OOH, radio, paid social, SEM, display and video.

What’s keeping you up at night?

Well as a marketer in travel, certainly, what’s been keeping me up is not whether Canadians still want to travel, because we know that they absolutely do. So it’s making sure that, as a brand, we’re showing up in the right places, in the right ways, with the right kind of support. As you’ve probably seen, we’re investing in physical locations again.

We just launched our flagship store in downtown Toronto and that’s not out of nostalgia, because we know what matters to people. And when something goes wrong, Canadians don’t necessarily want to navigate a chat bot or call a call centre, they want a human being who knows what to do. So opening in Royal Bank Plaza is part of that commitment.

It’s certainly a great location from a brand-visibility perspective, but more importantly, it’s about trust and familiarity and showing our customers that we’re still here, and we’ve been helping them for the last 30 years in Canada. So knowing that Canadians tell us that working with a travel expert gives them that peace of mind, we take that responsibility really seriously. So as a marketer, of course, there’s things I worry about, KPIs, such as ROI leads, traffic, market trends. But more than anything, I think it’s around, how do we continue to earn our customers’ trust, one conversation at a time?

How has the seasonality of the business changed?

Seasonality will always be at play, especially the winter drives a lot of travel destinations for Canadians, of course, and certainly would be remiss to not talk about the landscape with the U.S. So travel this particular year, even in the last four months has definitely shifted. People are now going to places further out, or going to Europe for a long weekend versus for a longer period of time.

And despite economic pressures and what’s happening in the south, we know that Canadians still want to travel. They’re just looking further afield, and it’s a great time for our brand, actually, to highlight our expertise and our travel experts and showcasing the world to people in different destinations at different times of year. I mean, there’s 195 countries and our experts are here to show people the world. So seasonality certainly is at play.

In terms of geopolitical strife, to what extent will people have long memories and will this have a lingering effect on how Flight Centre operates?

Well, the last four months have definitely been challenging in a lot of ways, but we’re seeing that people are not necessarily cancelling their vacation. They’re just looking further afield with more intention. So there’s Canadians that are going to continue to travel to the U.S. in the short term and I think things will bounce back eventually.

We are very united as a country and Canadians love to travel. We’ve got lots of data that showcases the lengths to which Canadians will go to to continue to travel, even despite some of the economic pressures or a low Canadian dollar, et cetera.

So whether we’ll see the bounce back to the U.S this calendar year is uncertain. I don’t think anyone can predict that, but it’s showcasing that Canadians will will continue to travel and give other places a chance. Or go to places for a shorter period of time than they would have normally.

Does the proliferation of travel vloggers and so much online content potentially undercut Flight Centre’s status as a brand that offers expertise?

Vloggers and social media, TikTok, all of that. It’s such an important part of our strategy, and definitely, as a brand, we need to show up there and showcase our expertise in our travel authority. And people certainly look to those channels for inspiration. But ultimately, people are looking for true expertise and human connection and travel has never been more important than it is now. So, either with the proliferation of AI and so forth, it’s certainly helping people in the planning phase. But should something go wrong, or you need to change your plans, there’s no way you can google your way out of that. If there’s a flight disruption, you really do want to lean on a travel expert. And so there’s definitely a time and place for that, for consumers to come to a travel agency like ours with some ideas in line and help our travel experts curate a really personalized experience. I think we’ve been seeing that the proliferation of vloggers and and all of that has been great, but no one, a lot of people don’t want the same type of trip. They want something that’s really personalized to their experience, to their wants and to their needs. And our people are able to do that better than a vlogger or even AI.

On the demographics front, have you seen a shift in the type of consumer you’re attracting?

We see a wide demographic. I mean, as a traditional travel agency, we also have a really strong online offering. So our online offering really does cater to more digital-savvy consumer who’s definitely comfortable with tech and booking their travel online. And then, of course, our offline business, that hybrid model that we have, does generally cater to not necessarily a demographic but a consumer who’s looking to book a more complex trip.

Looking for a curated experience booking, a cruise or product type that’s just a little bit more difficult to do online, so complex itineraries, cruises, family vacations, or anyone who’s really short on time are really kind of the categories that we see booked through our Flight Centre travel experts in store or online. So it’s not really about a demographic. It’s really around the type of travel someone’s looking to book. If it’s just point to point air, you can do that on our website quite easily, but if you’re really looking for a really curated experience or something a little bit more complex, that’s where we see a younger consumer or an older consumer really leverage our in store experts.

Is there a challenge unique to the travel category that other marketers might not appreciate?

That’s a great question. Well, look, I think the travel industry has gone through pretty tumultuous time period during the pandemic, like many industries have and travel, even despite the pandemic and wars and economic pressures throughout the ages, the travel industry has been pretty resilient. And I think as a traditional travel agency. I think even going back to the 2000s people thought that the internet was the death of the travel agent, we’re still here. We’re more resilient than ever.

And so I think I’ve worked in a number of industries before travel, and I think just the pace at which the industry moves and how things impact this industry, whether it’s travel related tariffs, there’s no tariffs on travel, but obviously it impacts the Canadian consumer, or things that directly impact travel, it’s certainly more turbulent than a lot of other industries are

Having worked in other non travel related industries, at the end of the day, travel is emotional. It’s personal. It’s too important to leave to chance, and that’s why I feel, as a marketer in this particular industry for Flight Center brands, specifically expanding our footprint in heart, Toronto and across the country is so important and pivotal, just given the time and place we’re in in history where human expertise and personal connection has never been more important than it is today.