Small Luxury Hotels of the World is bolstering its ties with the trade through the development of a new travel agency programme.

Hand-picked agencies have been invited to join SLH’s new exclusive travel community curated by a specialist global sales team to enjoy best available rates with the inclusion of special benefits and upgrades.

A total of 360 prestigious travel agencies across the globe have so far adhered to the exclusive programme including eight Continents Travel (China), RASK Travel (UK), Atelier Voyage (Germany), Smartflyer (Australia), Protravel International (USA) and Superviagem (Brazil).

Launched in July, the withIN programme is now bookable via global distribution systems and the SLH Voice reservations team, with a dedicated travel agent website expected to launch in early 2020.

Affiliated travel agencies are granted commission levels at ten per cent on standard room types and 15 per cent on suites (subject to a minimum of two nights).

Travel agencies signed up to the programme are also able to secure highly attractive benefits for their customers including:

• Complimentary daily breakfast for two people.
• Room upgrade to next room category (subject to availability at the time of check-in). Early check-in/late check-out (subject to availability at the time of check-in).
• A credit worth minimum $50 per room, per stay to be spent on non-accommodation extras such as food and beverage and spa on property.
• Complimentary Wi-Fi.

Some 235 SLH hotels have so far confirmed their participation to the programme including brand new properties such as the Celino South Beach (Miami), Ovolot the Valley (Brisbane), the Merchant House (Bahrain), Finca Serena (Mallorca), Vintry & Mercer (London) and the Outpost Hotel Sentosa (Singapore).

Carsten Lima, vice president of Sales for Small luxury Hotels of the World, EMEA, said: “We strongly believe in investing in our partnership approach to working with the best travel agencies so our relationship with them continues to go from strength to strength.

“With the launch of withIN, we are making this partnership approach bigger and better, so that selected travel agencies working with us benefit from even more opportunities to promote and sell our participating SLH hotels regardless of luxury network affiliation.”