<\/p>\n
Despite forming a travel business while emerging online booking operations threatened to unravel the travel industry, Mark Trim (BBgIntFin \u201905) has forged a thriving modern travel company that combines internet conveniences with services attuned to what travellers want and need.<\/p>\n
As Director of the Complex Travel Group, Mark runs a series of specialty travel companies focused on such niche areas as business-class airfares and luxury cruises which generate about $141 million a year and continue to grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is possible to carve out a profitable niche as an independent Adelaide company within an $8 trillion global industry, and our point of difference among all the other massive mega-companies is to show that we care about the customer,\u201d says Mark.<\/p>\n
His business success started from an early age, with Mark forming his own travel company at 23 \u2013 but this follows his prodigious, speedy success in studies, having passed Year 12 at 17, then completing his Bachelor of Finance at Flinders University when he was still only 20.<\/p>\n
Armed with a degree, he initially thought of doing merchant banking or investment banking, and had started work in an unsatisfying job at Westpac, but his hunger to travel compelled him to search for a job in the travel industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI joined Flight Centre, which didn\u2019t actually give me any access to travel, but I did become a store manager at the age of 22. I saw there were not a lot of people with tertiary education in the travel industry, and I could identify business opportunities, so I acted on them immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt now seems to have unfolded so quickly, but at that time it seemed to me that it was such a long, drawn-out period, because I was so impatient to get on with life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark describes himself as a \u201cserial entrepreneur\u2026\u00a0 I\u2019m ideas-based, obsessed with taking action, more about firing and less about aiming.\u201d This means that Mark\u2019s company continues to adapt, as he reads and reacts to movements within an ever-changing business environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is always significant change. First it was the internet, now it\u2019s AI \u2013 but new technology doesn\u2019t have to mean the death of everything that had come before it. The constant that doesn\u2019t change is high-quality customer experience, which gets rewarded with return business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through taking a macro view of the travel industry, Mark successfully identified different market segments and created a dynamic hybrid of online operations coupled with providing tangible support for customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understood the need to specialise, right from the outset, and that set this business on the right path,\u201d he explains. \u201cBeing so young at the outset, it didn\u2019t feel like taking such a giant leap, probably because I didn\u2019t initially have so much on the line. But perhaps that\u2019s the leap you have to take to make a mark.\u201d<\/p>\n