Group Helps Agents Tap Romance Travel Niche

The Destination Wedding & Honeymoon Specialists Association (DWHSA) launched in February 2013 with the goal of better educating travel agents about the challenges and opportunities of selling romance travel.

A year later the group boasts more than 500 members across the U.S. and Canada, along with robust plans to grow the organization’s training regimen and increase public awareness of romance and honeymoon travel.

“Our members are important to us and have helped us steer our educational offerings,” said Lisa Sheldon, CTC, MCC, executive director of the Destination Wedding & Honeymoon Specialist Association. Sheldon helped found the association along with John Hawks, a former president of ARTA.

“We’re very pleased at our first year, in terms of what we’ve accomplished.”

Educational resources
Association resources include an extensive online video course, two weekly live webinars led by industry veterans, Facebook forums and a series of romance travel boot camps planned throughout North America starting this spring.

“We have 55 modules online now, so our core training is not a quick thing,” said Sheldon. “It takes some commitment of time for those who want to tap into the romance travel market.”

Topics covered in the videos include marketing and selling to brides, dealing with difficult clients and tapping into the growing niche of LGBT romance travel.

“The LGBT market is exploding for romance travel specialists, because more states are making [marriage equality] legal,” said Sheldon.

DWHSA’s annual membership fee of $139 gives agents access to the groups’ training materials, live events and active Facebook group.

For all kinds of agents
Agents who’ve joined the group hail from a wide swath across the industry. About 20% of the members are from Canada.

“We have a lot of agents who are new to travel and decide to head right into this niche,” said Sheldon.

“We also have agents with years of experience selling honeymoons who haven’t gotten into the details of doing destination weddings.”

Boot camp
A romance boot camp is set to hit several cities this spring, including Atlanta, Houston, Baltimore, St. Louis, Seattle and Toronto. The Baltimore date has already sold out, but DWHSA may add another to meet demand.

DWHSA has partnered with Love Mexico for its Atlanta and Houston events, giving agents destination information and face-time with vendors at an evening reception.

Future plans
The group hopes to launch a consumer education website in the future. Its focus will be to provide information to consumers and convince them of the value of using a travel professional.

“There is a lot of emotion tied to this type of vacation,” said Sheldon. “We know consumers can book the trips themselves, but is it always better for them to do it themselves?”

DWHSA is also planning a multi-day conference for April 2015.