This week for the Friday 15, Shayna co-hosts with Lori Speers of Levarte Travel! This week we’ve got a bunch of great questions to discuss this Friday at 12 pm CST. Join us!
- When I'm a vendor at festivals a few times a year advertising my travel agency, booth visitors repeatedly ask what tours are available besides the flyers I have on the table that show guided trips of a particular country with prices. I always have to stress to them that I can design a customized trip or a FIT and that we are travel advisors. At that point they have a confused look on their face and don't realize that we can do that besides booking a fully guided tour. What would you recommend so that they understand more clearly my services to them as a travel advisor? Should I remove the flyers that show guided trips? Should I place a flyer plainly in sight with bullet points what I can do for them? - Marc
- Now that I've been in business for over 5 years, I am buried in data! I was checking out your travel agency software recommendations but am quite overwhelmed. The type of travel booking I do is not for leisure, I actually book for disaster relief. We are a 24-7 travel management company and we book on very short notice as well as very high volume.
- I need a software where I can store all of my bookings and can easily enter guests information quickly. I need to be able to track each specific event, room rate, savings, no shows, cancellations, etc. I would also like to be able to check inventory levels for multiple hotels. There I times I get requests for 20-100 rooms and I have to call each hotel to check availability. I'm not sure if GDS access allows me to view inventory on a wider scale.
- I've been running my business day by day as work comes and now it's time to really get organized and spend on tools that will help me work smarter not harder.
- I'm considering focusing on Luxury, Family, and Accessible Travel and I was thinking of positioning myself as: "Luxury & Accessible Travel for Families and Beyond.” Before I move forward with that, I wanted to get some feedback. Does that phrasing make sense, or does it feel like too much? I'm open to refining it.
To give a bit of background:
- We work with Virtuoso which has opened the door to the world of luxury travel for me. I'm constantly inspired by the potential to create exceptional, once-in-a-lifetime experiences I absolutely love it!
- I've always planned travel for my own family, which is what inspired me to join the industry.
- I also have personal experience with accessibility needs my son has sensory sensitivities, and I have family members who use wheelchairs so accessible travel is a cause close to my heart.
- Do you think it's okay to market myself across these three areas, or would it be better to focus on just one? - Cassie
RESOURCES:
➡️We have a great blog piece on ‘What do travel advisors do?’ which outline many advisor privileges that aren’t available to the public - this could be very helpful to you - https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/what-do-travel-agents-do
➡️ Definitely worth going to check-out our Travel Technology Directories - https://hostagencyreviews.com/travel-agency-software
➡️ We have an article on Tips for Choosing your Travel Agency Name - https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/travel-agency-names
➡️Tech Week! Registration is open for HAR*Wired! | Host Agency Reviews: https://hostagencyreviews.com/page/tech-week
➡️Call for Host Week Speakers - https://hostagencyreviews.com/page/speakers
