Planning for the Rest of 2010

According to conversations I’ve had with my friends in the travel agent community, 2010 is shaping up to be a much better year than 2009, but many challenges still lie ahead as agencies look to climb the ladder of profitability. Doing better than last year is a huge plus, but the barometer you should measure yourself against is that of more profitable years from the recent past.  We must keep reality in check.

Now that the first quarter of 2010 is over, I’ve outlined out what I perceive to be the five biggest challenges that remain for the year with some suggestions on how best to address them.

Challenge 1:  Maintaining and Growing Your Client Base
Winning new clients and retaining current ones must remain a top priority.  We all know very well that a healthy customer base is the foundation of a healthy business.

Stay connected via phone, e-mail and/or social media with your valued clients.  Maintain ‘top of mind’ presence by keeping the lines of communication open.  Impress your clients with how well you know them by presenting vacation suggestions sure to fit their individual tastes and preferences. 

Encourage ‘word of mouth’ praise because the payoff to you is invaluable.  Consider incentivizing your current clients to bring you new potential customers.  That investment (in terms of an upgrade or special extra to enhance the luxury vacation experience) can yield huge rewards for you and your business. 

Tap into local community events to build awareness of your depth of knowledge and the customized travel experiences you can deftly craft.

Challenge 2:  Understanding How to Sell to Today’s Upscale Consumer
Today’s high-end consumer has changed. They possess a new mindset that we need to understand and engage in order for us to succeed with a sale. And, the best way to comprehend this mindset is through relevant conversation with your customers. 

Consumers are also taking a more collaborative approach with their travel advisors. Their wanderlust spirit and increased used of technology to search for information encourages them to bring more to the table than just their wallet.

They are seeking vacations that provide distinctive experiences and substantial value – not just financial but a value that connects to something personally enriching. This relates to why ‘voluntourism vacations’ is a trend that has seen growth in the past half-year.  Today’s luxury consumers also continue to be inspired by family travel opportunities.

Challenge 3:  Promoting Agent Value
You’ve worked hard to develop a reputation for your travel expertise. You’ve done your research.  You’ve spent time traveling in order to personally experience the offerings of hotels, cruises and tour companies around the world. And, you’ve cultivated relationships with global suppliers whom you can reach out to for special extras for your clients. 

Don’t be afraid to showcase the value you deliver to your clients—whether it’s conveyed through phone or e-mail conversation, featured on your agency’s website, or outlined in the travel documents you prepare for them.  Be your own champion.

As travel professionals, you possess a tremendous value that should be appreciated by your clients. Those are the customers you want to keep.

Challenge 4:  Effectively Harnessing Social Media
Incorporating social media into your business strategy is vital. If you continue to view technology as your enemy, it’ll continue to defeat you. It’s here to stay so embrace it. Your younger customers are, in all likelihood, completely connected and Internet savvy. Your older clients might surprise you with their tech abilities. 

We’ve become accustomed to an impersonal world, and social media is actually satisfying a need people have for a sense of community. They share stories, wishes and interests. People want to engage in conversation, and the anonymity of some social media platforms is highly appealing. Adapting to these changes shows your flexibility as a travel professional and enhances the value you provide your customers.

Since we know that conversation is key to sales success, don’t cut yourself off from the dialogue.

Challenge 5:  Combating the ‘Deals’ Mentality
Tout ‘quality, quality, quality’ and educate your clients on how that can be comprised for ‘the deal.’ Gently remind them that planning a luxury vacation should not be akin to the game show ‘Deal or No Deal.’ Holding out for a discount isn’t the same as designing the trip of a lifetime.

Although people are still cautious with their travel spending, we must encourage the importance of purchasing a travel experience based on ‘excellence’ as opposed to a shorter lead time. 


Signs are encouraging for the future, but we must remain realistic about our climb back to success. Agencies report better sales now than six months ago, and clients have given themselves permission to spend money on travel again, which is excellent news, but much of the statistics are compared to 2009, the worst year in the travel industry. None of us are the same as we were pre-recession – so we should take what we’ve learned and build a new strategic platform upon that. Travel advisors can shape themselves into more savvy vacation planners and redefine their role far into the future.


 

Take Off To a Vacation

Over the years, I have come to believe that my vacation truly begins only the moment I touch down at a destination. Driving to the airport, parking, waiting for my flight and sitting on the plane were nothing more than a necessary evil. Sometimes painful and sometimes uneventful, it just wasn’t something I looked forward to. Even when I was lucky enough to get a business or first-class seat, I never reveled in my time onboard…until I found the promised land in Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class.

On a recent familiarization trip to South Africa with Virgin Limited Edition, I had the opportunity to try out the Upper Class Service. Sir Richard Branson, Virgin’s founder, is known for creating “over the top” experiences and I had to find out if he had once again lived up to his reputation . I boarded my 18-plus-hour flight from New York to Johannesburg with a seven-and-a-half-hour layover at London’s Heathrow. “What could possibly be enjoyable about this 24-hour enduro-flight,” I wondered, but knowing that my ultimate destination was Ulusaba in South Africa, I knew I could endure. 

Now, I know I sound dramatic but when you have only six days on the ground, almost 48 hours of total travel time is somewhat scary for even the most traveled road warriors. But the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at JFK was quite comfortable and the food amazing.  

Boarding the flight, I was a bit surprised by the seat configuration. Rather than facing completely forward, as you would on any other airline, the seats were angled with half-wall dividers between them. Gary and I realized quickly that having seats one in front of the other was actually a nice thing for a couple traveling together, since we could easily converse back and forth over the wall rather than across the aisle. The flight attendant came over and offering a nice glass of champagne, asked what size we would like for our “sleeper suits.” Initially I was a bit wary of the black pajamas she was giving us but as I glanced around the cabin I realized that I wouldn’t be the only ninja-looking passenger. I changed into my “jammies” and gave my clothes to the flight attendant to hang in the closet.

As we lifted off from JFK and I had a chance to admire my surroundings, I began to appreciate the thought that had gone into my individual seat environment. The storage space, TV and music system, and lighting and movie selection were amazing. As the flight attendant set up my space for dinner, my footrest was converted into a seat for Gary, so we could have dinner facing one another instead of side by side. This was so civilized, and once we added the linens, china, fine wine and gourmet food, we felt as though we were having our first romantic vacation dinner.
 
After a nightcap at the bar and turndown service by the flight attendant, I retired to my seat which had been transformed into a sleep environment. My seat, slash dining room, slash movie theater was now a sleep catacomb. It was private and comfortable on the lie-flat bed with a feather duvet and down comforter. As I lay in my bed, the half walls took away the fear that I would snore too loud, drool too much or lean into the seat next to me. So as I drifted off to sleep, I savored the comfort of my flying hotel.
 
As we descended into London, we quickly had our breakfast and changed from our sleeper suits back into our fresh, clean, well-pressed clothes. I could not believe that I felt so good. This was truly enjoyable and one of the best flights I have ever had in my 20-plus years in travel.
 
On arriving in Heathrow, we ventured out to a local pub with my favorite local driver/guide. This was a nice break in a long journey and left enough time to enjoy the benefits of the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse, including a massage for Gary and a haircut for me. After a hot shower in a private spa suite and a few games of billiards, we once again boarded our flight to “repeat step one” on my way to Johannesburg. I was amazed how quickly time passed in London with a short pub-crawl and the luxuries of the Clubhouse, which was included in the cost of our Upper Class ticket.


A month after returning from my trip to South Africa, I recommended Virgin’s Upper Class service to a client who raved about the experience following their trip.


And, so, my philosophy of my vacation starting only once I land has changed forever, for as my South African safari came to an end, I was actually looking forward to my journey home.


 

My Heart Goes Out to Chile

In case you haven’t heard by now, the South American country of Chile was rocked by an 8.8-magnitide earthquake, killing roughly 140 people and counting.

Don’t let the Haiti numbers fool you , people, more than 100 people dead is still a big deal.

And it couldn’t have happened to a more beautiful country in Latin America.

It is painful for me to look at pictures of toppled buildings and collapsed bridges, a sharp contrast from the snow-covered mountains and gorgeous lakes I saw when visiting there this summer.

In fact, on Friday, I just finalized a trip to go back there in mid-April. I was actually slated to be in Santiago, the city hit the hardest by the quake, which is still sending off after shocks every hour.

It’s hard for me to think like a member of the travel industry when so much human life has been lost, but the fact is Chile, like Haiti, was right smack in the middle of a major tourism push.

Last year, it hosted the TravelMart Latin America trade show. For anyone not familiar with the show, whoever hosts this show is usually the region’s next top player. Past hosts, such as Ecuador and Colombia, have all went on to huge tourism numbers shortly after hosting and Chile was heading in much the same direction.

And now this.

I still haven’t read the full reports on damage to infrastructure and since it happened over the weekend, I haven’t spoken to my sources there to see what hotels and other tourism facilities and attractions were damaged.

But needless to say, the most damage to be suffered here, from a tourism standpoint, is going to be public perception. Even if there’s not another earthquake or any other natural disaster in Chile for the next decade, people are still going to be fearful of it, much in the same fashion as people are still worried about traveling to Aruba because of one murder that happened a few years ago.

Ok, back to being a human again. If you have family there, work there or live there, my prayers go out to you. And if my Chile trip is still on for April, I’d be more than happy to go, offer a helping hand and tell you all about it.

Luxury Travel Expo Proves Industry is Bouncing Back

The floor was filled with agents at Luxury Travel Expo

The best part of Luxury Travel Expo 2009 for me was not the suite I stayed at in The Signature at MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas nor the filet mignon and lobster I was treated to at the second annual Awards of Excellence on Tuesday. Instead, it was seeing thousands of industry representatives flooding the trade show floor on Wednesday and hearing something from exhibitors that we haven’t heard from tourism representatives pretty much all year – complete confidence.

In fact, there were destinations making strong luxury pushes at the show for the first time in the form of Croatia and Tanzania, there were cruise companies like Variety Cruises adding new destinations for 2010, there were reports from operators proclaiming Mexico was back in business and there were other companies claiming booking periods were getting back to normal.

We found one such example when chatting with Phil Cappelli, director of national sales, for Tauck World Discovery, and learned that the tour operator is bouncing back from a rough start to 2009. Cappelli told us that clients are going back to their old booking patterns of up to six to seven months in advance, something that hardly any supplier has seen in an economy-stricken 2009.

There was not a single empty seat for either of the show’s general sessions, the seminar’s were packed and the show was as populated as a midtown street in Manhattan. It may have taken close to a year, but the luxury industry is back because it never panicked by slashing rates and waited patiently while weathering the storm. Hopefully, luxury hoteliers and cruise companies take this momentum and ride with it through next year.

Culinary Destination: Le Quartier Francais in South Africa

Susan Huxter, the owner of Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek, Cape Winelands, South Africa, was here to visit yesterday. There’s a lot going on in this Relais & Chateaux property, which is set just 45 minutes outside of Cape Town.

First of all, there’s a new “Culinary Concierge” menu that provides a number of unique experiences throughout the year.
We’re thinking the “Dessert Me” program—which allows guests to spend the morning with the chef learning how to make pastries and tarts that’s followed by wine pairing tips with lunch and, of course, dessert—sounds mighty fine, but there are plenty of other program options based on wine blending, bread baking and even an insider’s tour of Cape Town’s Neighborhoods Goods Market.

While all this sounds like a foody fantasy, we say the best part of the culinary program is “Mrs. Ndaba’s Fridays,” through which guests team up with the hotel to bake nutritious muffins for 67 toddlers who attend a local program run by a 68-year-old woman who cares for the kids gratis so that their parents can go to work. After the baking, guests take the muffins and visit with the children....Now that’s an enriching experience

Visit www.lequartier.co.za