{"id":16415,"date":"2025-02-18T10:26:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T00:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/?p=16415"},"modified":"2025-02-18T11:43:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T01:43:27","slug":"celebrating-25-years-of-mta-mobile-travel-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/celebrating-25-years-of-mta-mobile-travel-agents\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating 25 years of MTA-Mobile Travel Agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

MTA – Mobile Travel Agents celebrates 25th anniversary today: Founders Karen & Roy Merricks interview<\/h1>\n
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Once dismissed as \u201chobbyists\u201d, MTA – Mobile Travel Agents has proven the doubters spectacularly wrong. As the company celebrates its 25th anniversary (today, to be precise), a significant number of its advisors are earning well into the six figures, with some reaching even greater heights, according to MTA Co-Managing Director, Owner, and travel industry legend Karen Merricks. Not bad for a so-called side hustle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSome of them were earning $25,000 a year, working full-time in a retail agency. Then, after joining MTA, many quickly realised $100-150,000 \u2013 and then that income exploded over the years\u2026 depending on their time and lifestyle,\u201d Merricks tells me in an interview on the eve of the big occasion.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cOur platinum agents \u2013 there are now over 90 of them \u2013 are earning really big incomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

When reflecting on the birth and rise of MTA \u2013 Mobile Travel Agents, Merricks looks back like one would on the growth of a family \u2013 with much pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a quarter of a century, but it seems like yesterday when we launched,\u201d she remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe set out to have a company that values people and family\u2026 and I feel we\u2019ve created that \u2013 a business that upholds family values and a company full of the most amazing people.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a family affair<\/h4>\n
\"travel
MTA \u2013 Mobile Travel Agents 2024 national conference attendees in Fiji. (Image Mark Harada)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the 2024 MTA \u2013 Mobile Travel Agents national conference in Fiji, I was struck by the genuine warmth and camaraderie within the organisation \u2013 it felt like one big travel family. It\u2019s an atmosphere I expect will endure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really love being together and catching up. I am so proud of MTA and the people we have around us,\u201d Karen explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our head office team, our brilliant advisors and our supplier connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Merricks experiencing a difficult few months late last year on a personal level (Karen lost her beloved sister to bowel cancer in 2024), she stresses how important it is to \u201chold those we love close and cherish our time together\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel business should be any different,\u201d Merricks says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about caring support and enjoying the ups and downs of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

MTA for mums<\/h4>\n
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MTA \u2013 Mobile Travel Agents Platinum advisor group in Hobart.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Merricks, together with husband and business partner Roy, started MTA as a way to help women \u2013 especially those with children \u2013 undertake a more fulfilling journey in the travel industry. They also wanted to support women in rejoining the workforce. And it stemmed from Karen\u2019s own experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlexible hours was a big issue. You don\u2019t want to miss out on kids\u2019 events, like Christmas plays and sports carnivals,\u201d Karen says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I needed access remotely to my own GDS system, not through the office where I had to keep calling to go and do my work, which was a half-hour drive for me just to go and book a domestic ticket. That just wasn\u2019t workable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be able to work from a home office; do my work when I wanted\u2026 and then be able to get the kids and work again in the evening because it suited me to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we talked about it at length. And then Roy, said, \u2018well, ifyou<\/em>want it, everyone wants it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

It turns out a lot of travel professionals actually did. But it wasn\u2019t simple, as Roy puts it, \u201cbecause none of the systems were there\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly about a third of travel agents even had an email!\u201d Roy explains, about the lack of digital systems that we now take for granted.<\/p>\n

\"Themerricks\"
Mobile Travel Agents Founders Roy and Karen Merricks meet \u2018Mao\u2019s Last Dancer\u2019 Li Cunxin in 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After doing their homework on remote set-ups already in existence in places like the US, they were ready to go on 18 February 2000.<\/p>\n

True to its family-oriented ethos, even the Merricks\u2019 children Ben and Sara got involved in the business from the start \u2013 especially on the digital side of things.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was controversial, but once we launched, we just knew it was going to work,\u201d Karen says.<\/p>\n

Unless you call earning big money controversial, it\u2019s hardly contentious any more.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd these guys [members] are happy because they have freedom, they have flexibility; they work around their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long may that happiness continue. Happy birthday MTA \u2013 Mobile Travel Agents!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

First published on KarryOn\u00a0<\/a>– Mark Harada<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTA – Mobile Travel Agents celebrates 25th anniversary today: Founders Karen & Roy Merricks interview Once dismissed as \u201chobbyists\u201d, MTA – Mobile Travel Agents has proven the doubters spectacularly wrong. As the company celebrates its 25th anniversary (today, to be precise), a significant number of its advisors are earning well into the six figures, with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":16420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,159,161,163,158,57,160,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-cruise","category-family","category-groups","category-holidays","category-home-page-news","category-luxury","category-uncategorized"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-01-17 23:54:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16415"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16424,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16415\/revisions\/16424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtatravel.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}