kabarsula EXCLUSIVE: ‘We’re not looking to sign everyone’: Damian Borg on Signature’s Aussie push bandar SLOT INDONESIA

You’d be hard-pushed in the Australian travel market to find someone who hasn’t heard of Damian Borg.

Borg has, deservedly, earned the moniker of being one of the best-liked men in travel. Joining the industry in his late teens, he has more than three decades’ worth of industry relationships to his name.

After spending nearly a decade at NCL, Borg was recently named general manager AUNZ at Signature Travel Network. While Signature might be a global giant, generating US$11 billion annually, it is still relatively new to the Australian market, entering in 2022 via TravelManagers.

Borg is Signature’s first full-time Australia and New Zealand employee. For its first hire, Signature certainly didn’t go for an unknown quantity.

So what does his hire mean for the Australian travel market and what can we expect from Signature?

For one, the luxury network won’t be chasing agencies for the sake of numbers. Borg told Travel Weekly the expansion will be deliberately selective.

“We’re not about to be out there looking to sign everyone up,” Borg said.

“It is absolutely a case of them needing to be the right fit for the business.”

The appointment gives Signature a permanent presence in Australia as it looks to strengthen existing relationships with members including TravelManagers and House of Travel, while identifying opportunities to grow its luxury network.

“This market is so segmented and fragmented at the moment,” Borg said. “People are looking for an edge.”

Borg said Signature would be looking for self-sufficient agencies either already growing their luxury sales or making a serious move into the sector.

Already aligned with existing networks

Despite the opportunity, Borg acknowledged many of Australia’s strongest luxury agencies are already aligned with existing networks.

“There are some wonderful and amazing, what you’d call luxury or high-end agencies around the country,” he said. “A lot of them are already aligned somewhere.”

Borg, however, believes the relationships he has built across more than three decades in the industry could help Signature start conversations that might not previously have happened.

“I think I’m in a position where I can have a fairly open and honest and confidential conversation with a lot of potential partners,” he said, adding those relationships could “open doors that perhaps were not considered or not viewed as potential in previous years”.As Borg put it later in the interview: “We’re cherry-picking the right agents that fit our culture and fit our business model.”

Australia’s luxury market plays by different rules

One of the biggest mistakes new travel players make when they join the Australian market is assuming it is like the US or UK. AUNZ has its quirks, and Borg is well aware of them.

Australia’s travel consortium landscape is fundamentally different from that of the US, he says.

Rather than necessarily treating a luxury network as their primary affiliation, Australian agencies can already have what Borg described as a “foundational membership” with another consortium and look to Signature for products and benefits they cannot otherwise access.

Signature’s offering includes close to 1,400 hotels, alongside a suite and villa program spanning more than 600 properties. Members can access benefits including upgrades, early check-in, late check-out and hotel credits.

The network also allows agencies to take those benefits to market under their own brand.

“What we don’t say is that they must label those amenities as being Signature exclusive,” Borg said.

“What we say is that, you know, it’s a TravelManagers exclusive. So it’s completely theirs to own and put into market.”

Borg said that distinction could become increasingly valuable as more travel businesses attempt to position themselves at the premium end of the market.

“Everyone wants to be luxury these days,” he said. “It’s almost like everyone wants to tag that word onto their bylines or their company logos.”

But simply adopting the label isn’t enough.

“You can’t just jump into luxury and call yourself a luxury agent.”

Borg’s point is pretty clear: Signature is not for luxury newbies.

Cruise first on Borg’s hit list

Unsurprisingly, given his CV, one of Borg’s immediate priorities will be cruise.

Signature already operates a global cruise program and booking platform, but Borg said the absence of a dedicated local presence for several months meant rebuilding engagement with cruise lines would be one of his first tasks.

“My role is really going to be working with cruise lines, identifying what their needs are in this market, from this market,” he said.

Borg said he would use his previous experience on the supplier side to strengthen Signature’s commercial partnerships and make its cruise proposition more compelling for Australian members.

The network’s immediate priority is ensuring its cruise program is ready for Wave 2027 while increasing member understanding and use of its existing offering.

Borg sees considerable opportunity in luxury cruise in particular, with a growing pipeline of new ships and luxury yachts creating more capacity.

He also believes the customer is changing.

“Luxury has attracted that older cruiser for too long,” he said.

“You now have this younger subset that are warming to that five-, six-star private yacht or luxury yacht cruising option that has an atmosphere on board that suits their age demographic.”

For those travellers, Borg said luxury is increasingly about more than the traditional bells and whistles.

“It’s about the experience and that money-can’t-buy type experience.”

Relationships are the strategy

Borg is a professional. He is sharp when talking strategy, clear on where Signature fits in the market and frank about the work ahead.

But it is when he talks about relationships that Borg really comes into his own. You get a sense of the warmth and ethos that have underpinned his career in travel.

“I’m in this business because of relationships and because of partnerships,” Borg said. Unlike a lot of talk about relationships in business, you believe him.

“I’ve always maintained leaving an organisation in better shape than I joined it, and as a result of that, obviously never burning bridges.”

But Borg isn’t sentimental about the commercial realities of those relationships either.

Having recently come from the supplier side, he understands the pressure on partners to demonstrate a return on investment and believes networks such as Signature cannot afford to simply sit between suppliers and members.

“I can’t just be passive in that relationship. I’ve got to create opportunities,” he said.

“I think perhaps that’s an area of the industry that probably lacks a little, is that joint mutual ROI in some cases.”

Signature doesn’t want every agency in Australia. It wants the right ones. Many of those agencies already have homes elsewhere and, by Borg’s own admission, may never have previously considered Signature.

To reach them, Signature will need to open doors.

Fortunately, it has hired someone who has spent more than three decades building relationships with the people on the other side of them.