What Makes a Top Club Med Travel Advisor?

It’s no secret why Rachel Mooney has won Avoya Travel’s top honors for Club Med sales production two years in a row. She loves what she sells.

An agent for only about four years, Mooney has combined her personal love for Club Med vacations with a focus on targeting clients inclined to stay there, and developed her repeat business to build a consistently strong book of business.

Last year, Mooney booked 52 families, worth approximately $300,000 in sales. Those bookings represented about 27% of her agency’s total 2018 volume, and earned her Platinum status in Club Med’s agent loyalty program, the highest performance level.

“We have seen that when an Avoya agent understands the Club Med concept and value, and commits to Club Med as a ‘specialty,’ they can have quick growth within their first year of sales,” said Claudia Gil, Mooney’s Club Med BDM.

She added that while Mooney’s year-over-year growth is similar to a few other Avoya agents, “she’s reached her level at a faster pace. Rachel is really invested in the Club Med product.”

Successful agents like Mooney are hungry consumers of knowledge about Club Med’s brand promise, resort attributes and promotions, Gill said, and “understand how to identify their prospects and sell the right property to meet those needs.”

“If you can find what you are passionate about and sell that, you are going to be so much more successful,” said Mooney, owner of Birmingham, Alabama-based Changing Your Latitude Travel, an Avoya Travel affiliate.

All-inclusives like Club Med represent a huge opportunity for agents. In 2018, Club Med greeted more than 1.4 million customers worldwide, an increase of 6.6% globally, and up 5.6% in the U.S.

Earlier this year, the company reported that North America revenue increased 13% in 2018 over the previous year, mostly from visits to Club Med’s Caribbean resorts, “with outstanding performances on Club Med Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, Club Med Turkoise in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Club Med Cancún Yucatán in Mexico.”

Targeting ideal clients
Mooney credits part of her sales success to staying at Club Med resorts on her own vacations (she has visited Sandpiper Bay twice, Cancun, Turks and Caicos, Punta Cana; and Phuket, Thailand). She also soaks up Club Med training to understand the unique aspects and appeal of each Club Med resort. As a result, Mooney knows what experiences each resort offers, and can target clients better through her marketing and qualifying questions.

“A good salesperson, whatever they are selling, asks good qualifying questions,” said Gil. “That is the first step, before even getting into vacation budget and price.” Great questions elicit memories that “tell a story, evoke what they are looking for,” Gil added. “Then you can get into the nitty-gritty details.”

“It’s easy today to book a vacation on the Club Med website, so the vacation planner needs a great understanding of why Club Med, the personalities of the various properties, and be able to add information that interests you client,” she said.

A customer that could be a great fit for Club Med, Mooney said, talks about enjoying the differences of other cultures, and feeling like they have left the U.S. They also like to be active on vacation, so she listens for clients who might be interested in Club Med’s organized runs, group fitness classes, and beach volleyball games.

“I do think visiting a Club Med is critical to success because we are so unique,” Gil said. “There are people like Rachel and Jonathan who are active. There are others who sit on the beach. When you experience our resorts, you can sell the convenience of a client customizing their vacation to their needs.”

For parents, Mooney sells Club Med’s kid’s program. “They are very interactive with kids, teaching them culture or something new like cooking, or another age appropriate activity,” she said.

Love at first sight

Mooney first fell in love with the Club Med product at the Avoya 2016 conference, hosted at the Sandpiper Bay property in Port St. Lucie, Florida. “It was the only all-inclusive I had ever done, and immediately loved how it helped me relax and disconnect,” she said.

“I remember the first meal I had, saying to myself, ‘I can go get a soft drink and not pay for it. I can go back and get dessert and not pay for it.’ Then, after dinner, we were able to experience the shows and a dance party,” she said.

When she began planning her next vacation, Mooney wanted to return to a Club Med resort, and immediately started using her knowledge to sell to her husband, Jonathan.

“He had some assumptions about an all-inclusive, and wasn’t crazy about lying around on the beach all day,” Mooney said. (She and her husband participate in a variety of endurance sports, including marathon running.)

“I totally sold him on how, between paddle boarding, kayaking, and working out, we could be as active as we wanted to be,” she said. Within hours of checking in, she said, Jonathan was telling her, “I kind of feel like I am with my people.”

Returning home, Mooney set out becoming a Club Med expert and absorbed every Avoya Live Leads referral she could get her hands on.

“Live Leads was a huge part in getting the prospects, but as we know, getting prospects is just the first challenge.” To reach and stay atop Avoya’s Club Med sales ranking, Mooney spent a good deal of the last two years targeting repeat clients. In fact, about 60% of Mooney’s 2018 sales are repeat clients from her 2017 Club Med bookings. 

“If you can get them once, odds are they will come back to a Club Med. We try to do that in concert with travel advisors,” said Gill. “It continues to be referrals (through word of mouth) and mainly our return clientele that make Club Med a leader in land vacations. We have a schedule of announcements that we email to our entire travel advisor database, and they can forward it to their clients, or customize it under their own brand.”

Getting personal
Outside of Live Leads, word-of-mouth referrals and repeat business, Mooney relies on her own Club Med vacations to stimulate interest.

“I’ve found most of my friends and family are not familiar with the Club Med brand. They’re not discussed much in Alabama. So, I use my resort time as an opportunity to take pictures and video to showcase Club Med’s treasures, why I love it, and let them see what Club Med has to offer,” she said.

Mooney does most of her posting when she returns home. “When I get back, I get my thoughts together and start to organize my messages for the different platforms and who I am selling to. I’ll ask myself, ‘Is this picture best for Facebook or Instagram? Will this information help me sell to active couples like us, or help families get ready for their Club Med vacation?’ As a travel agent, you have to talk in stories.”

For example, when she discusses Club Med’s Punta Cana resort, she will talk about the beachside massage, “and how when the beach breeze hits the massage oil, it feels like heaven,” Mooney said. For tennis buffs, she researches top tennis hashtags to include with her posts.

“For the ‘no-hassles’ client, you can demonstrate the difference between a cruise and an all-inclusive by pointing out things like not having to wake up early to disembark the ship for the day’s excursion, or waiting on line when you come back,” she said.

“It’s so much more effective, telling what the experience is like,” Mooney said.