Bankole Bernard
CEO: FCm Travel Solutions
A Beautiful Offering
1.What solutions does your company offer corporate clients?
We are a travel management company and the corporate arm of Flight Centre, which is based in Australia. FCm has a strong presence in Europe and the Asia Pacific region. The creation of FCm Travel Solutions was to satisfy business travellers on a global level, while Flight Centre focuses on satisfying the needs of leisure travellers. At FCm Nigeria we offer our corporate clients impeccable service, coupled with the most effective and efficient travel technology. We offer professional advice on travel budgets, flight plans, tour packages, and the best hotels in Africa, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and the rest of the world. We continuously look for ways to make the travel aspect of our clients’ businesses as seamless and cost effective as possible. We also provide expense management systems.
2.What values does your company pride itself on?
Great service is what we stand for. We might have the best manpower, the best travel technology and the most beautiful offices around the world, but if the service is horrible, then everything is worthless. In short, FCm Nigeria prides itself on service delivery, from response time to follow up. We make it a point of duty to ensure our clients complain about anything but the service.
3.What distinguishes you from your competitors?
Our service. We never promise more than we can deliver. Rather, we deliver more than we promise. As a TMC, we belong to a network that covers the world, and with this we are able to meet our clients at every point. Where FCm Nigeria stops, FCm UK or Italy or Spain or France or Malta or Dubai or India or Kenya or USA or Germany (to mention just a few) will take over, and this applies to all partners under the FCm umbrella.
4.What are some of your challenges?
A major challenge is the saturation of the industry. Most agents today do not understand that there is a lot more to do in the travel industry. Satisfying clients goes way beyond the selling of tickets and putting them on flights. There are a number of technicalities and protocol that are usually overlooked. If everyone can buy into this, I can assure you there would be only a few agencies or TMCs standing tall. There are several challenges that arise on a daily basis, but with the establishment of associations such as the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA) and the Agency Programme Joint Council (APJC), most of these challenges are tabled and resolved.
5.How have you been able to keep ahead of the strong competition in the travel industry?
We at FCm Nigeria make a conscious effort to always maintain a corporate standard and never settle for less. We are a corporate organisation and we run a B2B (Business to Business) modus operandi. With that, we are able to focus on our target market, which keeps us in business, as well as set us apart from other agencies/TMCs. It is very tough, knowing what competition is out there, but rather than wallow, we come up with better and more unique strategies to survive.
6.What do you think is the way forward for the Nigerian travel market?
The Nigerian travel market is growing rapidly and I think the best way to maximize the advantages, is to develop the tourism aspect of the country. Nigeria is a beautiful country, the land here is truly green, and we should showcase it. If we did that, we would have continuous traffic, as well as the creation of positive awareness for the country. This would definitely catapult us into the limelight of the travel industry worldwide.
7.What are your ambitions for the year?
I want FCm Travel Solutions to maintain its top three position in Nigeria. We have set ourselves targets that will help us attain this goal. We also foresee that the industry will change and we want to play a major role in the positive turnaround of the travel industry in Nigeria, which is growing rapidly and being recognised.