I can tell you that the scope of this event is unlike anything I ever attended in my 30 years in the retail industry. I'm thinking that maybe.... just maybe, this is the Comic Con of cruising. It's a full week long. I'll actually be gone for 8 days. During that time, I'm scheduled to attend 16 lectures, general sessions and classes in addition to 4 ship inspections. That's a lot of information to take in. I could have attended many more events and lectures. But I tried to keep them down to no more than 3 a day (on the day I arrive and the day I leave there are none) so that I would have plenty of time to take in all there is to see. I'm scheduled to attend lectures on everything from Social Networking to one called "France, Diversity of Experiences to Suit Every Taste". (They had me at France!)
I'm excited about this. I'm not excited just because of what I may learn, but also because of whom I may meet. I hope to meet lots of travel professionals who can shed some light on things for me. As a home based travel agent in only my second year of operation, sometimes I feel like I am out here all alone. Sure, I could call my host company to ask questions and I do. Additionally, you can always contact representatives from the travel suppliers, they are more than willing to help. But sometimes it would just be really nice to have other travel agents who have muddled through all of this before to bounce things off of.
I just think that the more travel agents I have to network with, the better service I can be to my clients. And who knows there may be some clueless travel agent out there who knows even less than I do who I could answer a question for occasionally. Stranger things have happened! So this morning I started thinking about the things I have learned in the last 18 months that I would pass on to another travel agent if given the opportunity and here are a few of the things I came up with.
- When someone calls or emails and says "I need to get away, find me a vacation!" - ASK QUESTIONS!!!! When they say, "I don't know, just anyplace...." Don't believe it! I can't tell you how many days I have spent running queries for clients to go some place that they had absolutely no interest in!
- When talking to friends at dinner and they say in passing "I need for you to book me a trip to Europe..." Don't sit around and wait for them to call you with details of what they want to do, when they want to travel, or how much they want to spend. They apparently think you already know. Email or call them the next business day and ask for the details!
- When someone tells you, "I would never go on a cruise, I get seasick", don't believe them. They will turn around and book a cruise on their own 6 weeks later. I don't understand how this works, but apparently the phrase "I get seasick" is some sort of trigger for making a person book a cruise on their own with no help from a travel agent.
- Plan lots of home improvement projects for times when you expect business to be slow. This will trigger clients to call or email and book a trip for immediate travel during the times when the most work is being done in your home within two feet of you. There's no better accompaniment to being on the phone with a client than having a jackhammer working just a few feet away.
- If you have cats and ever want to get any work done while it is cold, get a space heater and aim it at whatever cat tower you want them to sit on to keep them off of you. This will have them lined up in the direct path of the space heater thus allowing you to work.
Jingle on the cat tower closest to the space heater... Mrs. Beasley waiting for her turn on the cat tower closest to the space heater. - If you need more business, go on a trip where you can't be reached. This will have clients coming out of the woodwork to book a vacation. When you get home, you'll have loads of new clients just waiting for call backs and several returning clients who want to book a cruise for 10 or more people. Sometimes when I have nothing planned for myself, I can go a full week without hearing from a single client. But if I'm within 5 days of leaving town to go anywhere, I suddenly become inundated with people ready to book. Thanks to this phenomenon, my parents have seen more of me in the last year than since I moved away from home.
- Network, network, network! This is especially effective if you have a few friends who you've noticed having random conversations with homeless people on a train. If they'll talk to a random homeless person on a commuter train, they will talk to anyone and you want them to carry your business cards around. (Just make sure that your physical address isn't on your business cards!)
- Blog! People especially like it when you tell self deprecating stories about yourself in your travel blog. They LOVE knowing that you have no coordination and fall down and skin a knee every time you go on a trip or that you have been known to get on a subway going the wrong direction in Manhattan. This apparently makes them feel better about their own travels.... or they're just entertained by your misery. Either way, it keeps them coming back and that's what it's all about!
- Work Bridal Shows! I thought I would book enough honeymoons from each show I did to pay for the show expenses plus make some profit. It turns out that you do book some honeymoons. But the real money is in booking wedding recovery trips for the mother and father of the bride that they take after the wedding! Dad figures he just spent at least $30k on getting a kid out of the house, he deserves an Alaskan cruise tour with no expense spared! Talk to the parents!!!
So anyway, those are a few of my helpful hints for travel agents starting out. Even if you aren't a travel agent, I would just say that starting a business is a humbling experience not to be taken on by the faint of heart. Have a great Monday and happy travels!
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