Our Story

The original mobile travel agents

The original mobile travel agents.

For more than twenty years, our people have been at the heart of our business. We started as and continue to be a family business. And together with our team of over 400 experienced travel agents around the country, we continue to strive to be the best travel agency in Australia.

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1990s

Revolutionising travel

In the 1990s we had an idea that would revolutionise how you experience travel. Today, we continue to be Australia’s leading team of mobile travel agents.

MTA – Mobile Travel Agents is born

The MTA-Mobile Travel Agents story began when owners Karen and Roy Merricks set out to make the careers and lives of travel professionals independent and more rewarding. Inspired by travel models in the United States, we launched MTA with our founding travel experts and began bringing experienced MTA-Mobile Travel Agents to our customers.

2000

2002

Created award winning virtual office

We launched our bespoke mid-office technology fondly referred to as ‘The VO’ (Virtual Office) providing our travel agents more independence and support. As Australia’s mobile travel agency pioneers, MTA gained industry recognition earning International Air Transport (IATA) accreditation and won a history full of awards and a global network of travel partners.

Nominated as an accredited Space Agent

We were honoured to be one of only eight agencies in Australia invited by Sir Richard Branson to join Virgin Galactic as an accredited space agent.

2006

2008

Invited to the Virtuoso luxury travel network

MTA were invited to be part of the exclusive Virtuoso luxury travel network, providing our customers access to the best travel experiences that can’t be accessed anywhere else. We grew our brand with the support of MTA brand ambassador, Jessica Watson OAM after she became the youngest person to ever sail single handed, non-stop and unassisted around the world.

Continued winning awards

Our accolades continued to grow as MTA became a finalist in the 2011 AFTA National Travel Industry Awards and repeated this every year until 2018 when we won Best Travel Broker Network.

2011

2014

Nominated for Travel Innovators Award

We were nominated for the prestigious Travel Innovators Award at the Travelscene Corporate Symposium in Bangkok.

Expanded consumer safety net

We launched MTA’s Zero Flight Risk™ – our cast-iron consumer guarantee, and the MTA Companion – our innovative handy travel app for clients.

We also entered our partnership with Helloworld Travel in 2016 when they invested in MTA and became 50 percent shareholders.

2015/16

2018

Launched MTA Professional Accreditation

Our commitment to invest in our people and help our advisors enhance their standing as travel industry professionals was realised when we launched our in-house online accreditation program, MTA Professional Plus – an intense program helping people achieve their dream and become a fully accredited ‘MTA Accredited Travel Professional’ agent.

MTA celebrates 20th Anniversary

20 years on and from humble beginnings we now employ over 50 head office staff and have over 430 Travel Advisors based across Australia. We celebrated our anniversary with a three day conference at Sanctuary Coast on the Gold Coast – with over 500 guests attending our Gala Dinner at MovieWorld. 

2020