Travel is a $8.1 Trillion industry with a countless number of niche markets and specialities. For new (and even veteran) travel-preneurs navigating the landscape can be daunting. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed take a deep breath and remember – Why YOU love travel.
The Travel Talk hosts have compiled their Top 3 Tips for the New Travel-preneur.
- Concentrate on 1-Niche Market – Remembering why you love to travel can help you narrow down your niche market. Most likely there is a large population of travelers who share your passion. If they share your passion, you have identified your customer demographic. For example, if you love all things Disney you may want to become a Certified Disney Specialist. Through Disney’s travel agent portal you have the option of taking several certification courses to learn how to sell vacations, cruises, world adventures, etc.
- Become Familiar with your Booking Engine – Most booking engines provide travel agents with a wealth of resources, marketing materials, update-to-date itineraries, and special offers. Travel Talk hosts, Jake Culbertson recommends logging into daily. While host Doreen Wong recalls going through the process of setting up practice groups through Princess Cruise’s OneSource portal.
- Talk about your Business – Travel tends to be a referral base business so it is important to share with your family, friends, colleagues and associates. Host Dawn Barraco encourages all travel agents to utilize the 3 modes of marketing – Mass Marketing, Direct Marketing and especially Social Influence Marketing (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Periscope). Dawn and Doreen host monthly webinars on how to maximize your travel business and build a loyal clientele basis for your brand using social media.
Be sure to subscribe to the blog for additional posts from the hosts as well as catch up on past Travel Talk Show topics. Our goal is to become a resource for you; connecting you to experienced travel-preneurs in specific fields.
Enjoy!
Surge Nations 