A TRAVEL AGENT’S INTRODUCTION TO

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A TRAVEL AGENT’S INTRODUCTION TOSELLING GROUP TRAVEL

Steve Crowhurst, CTC

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A Travel Agent’s Introduction To Selling Group Travel Copyright © 2013 Steve Crowhurst, SMP Training Co. Allrights reserved. Printed in Canada. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwisewhatsoever without written permission or authorization through payment of a Permission to Copy fee (except inthe case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews) . For information please contact SMPTraining Co. steve@smptraining.com or call 250-738-0064.

Protected by the Canadian Copyright Act.

For general information on SMP publications and services please email: steve@smptraining.com

Illustrations by Steve Crowhurst.

Limit of liability/disclaimer of warranty: SMP Training Co., publisher and the author make no representations orwarranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim allwarranties, including without limitation, warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be createdor extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable forevery situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author is not engaged in renderinglegal or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professionalperson should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising here from. The factthat an organisation or website is referred to in this work as a citation and / or potential source of further informationdoes not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information, the organisation or website may provideor recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet websites listed in this work mayhave changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

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TOPIC PAGE

Selling Groups Is ALL About YOU! 6

Know Thyself Checklist 7

Pitching YOU Against THEM 8

The Professional And The DIY Mug Shot 9

Product Knowledge Is More Than Just Destinations 10

Check Your World IQ And Create Your Own Travel Map 11

Marketing Your Services 12

Listing Your Group Planning Services 13

Creating Your Group Services Slogan 16

Sloganeer According To Your Customer 17

The Why They Book With Us Slogan 18

Understanding Risk And Spec’ 20

Rebranding An Existing Supplier’s Tour 21

Working With A Preferred Supplier’s Group Department 22

Marketing 23

Marketing Tips, Tools & How To 24

Website – The Heart Of Your Marketing Activities 25

Post Your Digital E-Reader Brochure 26

E-Mail Marketing 27

Choosing An Email Marketing Service 28

Social Media Marketing – Facebook 29

Boosting Your Facebook Post 30

Making Your Post Interesting And Meaningful 31

Social Media Marketing - YouTube 32

Seed Your YouTube Channel 33

Press Releases 34

Blogs & Blogging 35

Public Relations 36

Consumer Events 37

Direct Mail 38

Using Social Media To Set Up Old Media Events 39

About The Author 40

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Welcome to A Travel Agent’s Introduction to Selling Group Travel.

Before you start planning groups that may or may not sell, it’s important to establish yourselfas an agent that arranges group travel, select the services you will offer and then focus yourmarketing on selling YOU, not the product. In this guide you will find short sharp tips and toolsto help you do this.

Group travel can be both lucrative and also ruinous if you do not know the rules. Start with thisintroduction and then develop your initial group sales strategy.

Believe it or not, although it is preached by many in the trade as the fastest route to profit, notevery travel agent has the interest or inclination to sell group travel. It takes a certain mindset,marketing savvy and attention to detail to become a leader in attracting, selling and closinggroup travel. Do it right the first time or revamp your current group sales plan and you willactually have little competition.

Enjoy the read and don’t forget to take advantage of our coaching program explained below.

Steve CrowhurstThe Travel Agent’s Store

PS: All links in the guide are shown in text format versus hyperlinked. In this way you’ll always havethe actual link visible whether you view the guide onscreen or print the guide to read.

THE TRAVEL AGENT’S STORE COACHING PROGRAM

To help you get the maximum benefit from your purchase The Travel Agent’s Storeoffers a free coaching session with the author of the e-Guide. The coaching sessionslast for up to one-hour and are conducted via Skype. Once you have read through andstudied this eGuide jot down any questions or challenges you have, then email tosteve@thetravelagentsstore.com to arrange a coaching date and time.

Be sure to take advantage of this offer!

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Selling Groups Is ALL About YOU!

There are many travel agents struggling to find out which destination to package and take to market orwhich niche to “get into” in an attempt to ride on a current trend whatever it may be. They are chasingthe wrong rabbit. Success when it comes to selling group travel can be based on a destination howevermoreover, the focus has to be on you and your ability to sell YOURSELF to group travel prospects.

The graphic below shows other opportunities that you’ll read about in this guide, however they are allsecondary to promoting your skills, talents, knowledge and group planning & arranging services.

Getting into groups would usually require a hands-on working history of arranging both small to mid-sizedgroups travelling with-in state or province, cross border to international venues. It might be that you justlike to plan such things as parties and social gatherings and have a knack for detail when making thosearrangements. These skills are all relative and the history of having arranged groups for a living goes along way to marketing your services.

The rubber meets the road about here - and that screeching sound comes from the difference betweenarranging a group departure to actually sourcing the business and closing it. Arranging is the easy, fun part– finding and closing the group sale is the tough part.

First things first, let’s get your group services resume ready to market.

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Know Thyself Checklist

Start here by making notes of everything you’ve done, seen, touched, flown, cruised and so on. You’llwant to generate an overview of your travel trade career and include past careers if they support yourgroup travel services focus. You are writing this for yourself. Once you have the words written down thenyou’ll have the base information from which you’ll create your marketing program that promotes you asthe center of attention. Fill in the blanks with your information:

Years in the travel trade: _____________________________________________

Number of countries visited: _____________________________________________

Number of miles flown: _____________________________________________

Number of cruises cruised: _____________________________________________

Favourite destination, city, place: _____________________________________________

Favourite type of travel: _____________________________________________

Group Travel Related Business Skills: _____________________________________________

Group Travel Supporting Talents: _____________________________________________

Travel passion for: _____________________________________________

Special travel related achievements: _____________________________________________

Languages (100% fluent in…) _____________________________________________

Write a short bio of yourself here. Don’t try to sell yourself here… just create a nicely flowingoverview of YOU. You’ll turn this information into marketing lingo and advertising WOW later on.

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Marketing Your Services

At this point you have your basic travel trade, group travel bio ready to go and you also have severalimages of you in both a corporate and outdoor, travel mode setting, plus maps of your travels andanything else you feel you should create to support your claims. Now, it’s time to decide what it is youwill be saying and promoting about your group planning services. Here’s the question that needsanswering:

Out of all the options available today,why should someone book their group with you?

From here on, everything you intend to do should or must answer this question as it’s what’s in theprospects mind when you finally engage them. You might say, as many agents do, “Well, we have the bestcustomer service.” The thing is, every travel agency offers customer service – perhaps some are notdelivering the best-of-best customer service but still, it is common to all and expected by the client.

What else can you offer that will set you apart and attract a group travel prospect to book with you? Ifyou go with product, supplier connections, better buying options etc., you’d be on the right track but notthe track you should follow right now.

Remember the idea is to promote YOU. NO one else has YOU. Only YOU have YOU. This is why it is soimportant to get YOU down on paper and into a blended (old media plus social media) promotionalcampaign ASAP.

Here’s how your blended plan might go together with YOU being the main feature throughout,emphasizing your website, use of email, and Facebook, YouTube for your videos, press and PR, your Blogand special events plus direct mail.

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Creating Your Group Services Slogan

Everything you have worked on up until this point in the guide has been to prepare for the activity ofmarketing YOU and your services versus just pitching group tour product on spec’. Now is the time tocreate a worthy slogan that will cause prospective group clients to look at your ad, press release, onlineand social media promotion and be prompted to contact you. The end result of your slogan generation isno different to how McDonalds and American Express have you instantly reacting to their slogans.

Eventually, when you think hamburgers your mind, whether you want it to or not, will show you an imageof a McDonalds logo. Think of the number of times you have said or thought the words “Don’t leave homewithout it…” referring to things other than an Amex card, such as a wallet, a coat, scarf… and all thanks tothe promotional power of the American Express credit card.

It’s this level of consumer recall that your group travel promotions and slogans should generate. So, what’syour slogan going to say, mean, offer, suggest? How about this one:

One reason to book your group with us is this.

This type of slogan pushes you way out front and shows that you and your agency are ahead of the oldguard and using current technology to enhance your client’s trip experience. There are plenty of WhereAre You apps and it might be that you would like to create your own and keep it purely for your groupclients to download and activate. Include a training session on how to use the app and factor this serviceinto your program as a bonus and that’s something else you can promote.

What else have you got going for you that challenges the old-stylegroup travel agencies and companies? What can you turn into

a claim-to-fame statement or brand slogan?

We don’t waveflags anymore!

Book your group with us anddownload our On Location App

and find your tour guide instantly…

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Marketing

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Marketing Tips, Tools & How To

It’s time to explore the various marketing channels available to you and how you can make the best useof them to promote yourself as a group travel arranger. We’re talking about a blended approach using oldmedia and social media too. There’s no escaping the need to learn about social media and how it cangenerate a very fast response and at the same time know that old media still works.

The combination of channels you employ will very much depend on the profile of your clients in terms ofage, needs, how they wish to receive your communications and how they like to do business. There arefour criteria your group marketing activities must accomplish and they are shown below.

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Seed Your YouTube Channel

You may not have too many group videos of your own to upload right away, so you’ll need to “seed” yourchannel with other videos. To do this legitimately you can source the videos of your suppliers and also thetourism offices of the destinations, cities and areas featured in your group tours.

Click on the video, open it in YouTube orsearch YouTube for the videos you want toseed into your own YouTube channel andthen look for the Add To text (see below)click and you’ll have this video ready to playon your own channel.

Make sure you choose the videos that areHD 1080 and 16:9 in format – which meansthe video will play in wide screen versus theold and dated square looking format.

More Video SourcesAs you continue to build your own video library, you can add supplier and destination videos as mentionedPLUS you can invite your past group tour clients to send you their finished videos too (known as UserGenerated Content) – just make sure no expletives are in the sound track and no adult situations arevisible on screen. It’s your YouTube channel so you must guard it and police it well.

Search online for travel video collections and you’ll access websites where you can download hundredsof videos to play on your YouTube channel. Choose carefully so as not to lose your niche focus.

Lighten the mood with the occasional humourous video or musical tribute. Depending on the age of yourcustomer base you might, thinking about your Baby Boomer clients for instance, upload the Beatles AbbeyRoad soundtrack found here… the full album no less: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpV53LqcuhU- this means your YouTube channel visitors can click and listen to the Beatles while they check out yourwebsite.

For something very exciting check out the Human Planet series produced by the BBC. These are classicand exciting and will most certainly stir the travel gene in your YouTube watching clients. Check out theHuman Plant trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HiUMlOz4UQ

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About The Author

Steve CrowhurstTravel trade keynote speaker, trainer, author &publisher.

Steve entered the retail travel industry in 1965 and hasworked from the front line to the executive floor, ownedand operated his own travel agencies, travel tradetraining and consulting firms and has worked from a homeoffice for over 20 years.

In 2010 he published his 412 page book 273 “No Fluff - NoTheory” Marketing Ideas for Travel Agents; in June 2011he published the first digital issue of Selling Travelmagazine, this was followed by Travel Agency Managerand Travel Trade Supplier magazines in early 2013.

In October 2013 Steve published the first issue of IC TravelAgent a digital magazine targeting the home-based travelagent, ICs and OSRs.

Steve’s main focus for his keynote speeches, trainingsessions and publications is to help the retail travel agentgenerate more business.

If you would like Steve to speak at your conference orconvention, deliver management level webinars or workwith your executive team please email him directly:steve@smptraining.com

A complete bio can be read here.

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