Tour Ops Boost Their Support of Agents

Tour operators are spending more time, effort and money than ever before on programs designed to educate and support travel agents.

The reason: Many agents still have misperceptions about tours and how much money they can make selling them. Yet tour operators say agents are crucial to the success of their business.

Just listen to what Terry Dale, president and CEO of the United State Tour Operators Association (USTOA), has to say.

“Last year we hired Price Waterhouse Coopers to conduct our second economic impact study, and what we learned is that approximately 67% of all our member bookings come from the travel agent distribution system,” Dale said.

“For those members who sell complex travel or luxury travel that number is in the 90 percentile or higher. The travel agent is very important to our members, and we see that growing.”

Tour operators have responded to the central role agents play in their business by launching new—and improving existing—programs aimed at helping agents better sell their products.

Here’s what some of them are doing.

Collette launched its new eLearning program, Collette University, on Jan. 1. The program includes 25-minute modules that educate agents on the company and what it offers in terms of products and destinations.

It also informs them about Collette’s marketing programs, provides reasons why they should sell guided tours, and how-to’s on putting together affinity groups, among other topics.

Once agents complete one five-module curriculum, they become Collette Specialists and from then on receive a $20 credit to apply to a Collette trip for each client they book.

Another major initiative is the Collette Partnership Plus coop marketing program, said Dan Sullivan, Collette’s president and CEO. “We’ve been doing it about a year, but only in the past six months has it really come up to speed,” he said.

Under the program, Collette shares its database analytics capabilities to help agents identify the most qualified prospects among the clients in their databases. Agents can then customize marketing pieces to send to those clients. Collette contributes about 50% of that cost.

Tauck will inaugurate its first online academy in April, along with certification programs for Bridges, the company’s multigenerational brand, in May, and for Tauck River Cruises in June.

Although Tauck has been operating its Tauck Academy, a combination fam trip and educational seminar, for the past two years, this year it will launch the Tauck Academy Road Show.

The road show will be a three-day combination of classroom modules and local tour experiences. These will take place in Chicago in June, Philadelphia in August, Vancouver in September, and San Diego in December.

Last spring the company introduced its Agents Reward program that enables agents to earn a $200 credit towards Tauck travel of their own for each client they book.

“We want agents to travel on us,” said Steven Spivak, vice president of global sales. “There’s a correlation between experiencing a Tauck tour and selling it.”

Globus recently started shortening its webinars to 15 minutes in order to accommodate agents’ busy schedules. The webinars highlight trends in travel preferences and what agents should focus on.

More than 3,000 agents have become Globus Tour Experts, the third certification program for the Globus Family of Brands. It’s other two are Monogram Booking Agents and Avalon Waterways Specialists.

“The Globus Tour Expert is not just about our product,” said Jennifer Halboth, the company’s director of channel marketing. “We do a deep dive into the market. We look at the size of the market, the makeup, who takes tours, why they take tours, and what they like about touring.

“We offer a lot of tour analysis. We have a whole segment on sales and marketing – who to market to and how,” she added.

Once participants become Globus Tour Experts and book five clients on trips, the agent will earn a $1,000 air credit that can be used in conjunction with a Globus travel agent discount booking of as much as 60% off of a Globus tour.

Trafalgar has revamped Travel Talk, its consumer-facing event program, into three tiers that provide agents with opportunities to book tours.

In its introductory events, a district sales manger will come to an agency’s office or offsite venue to do a presentation. The second level of events take place in a more formal venue with more attendees and have a Trafalgar travel director on hand. A top tier event attracts 100 people or more, takes place in a hotel ballroom and includes an appearance by Trafalgar President Paul Wiseman.

The company has held 1,000 of these events since October 2014, and according to Wiseman, they can boost agents’ bookings.  

“A guided vacation lead can take four to six months to actually land the booking,” he said. “But as a result of Travel Talk events, we’re seeing as high as 20% to 30% of those bookings close within a week or two of those events, while the balance of those bookings will come much later.”