Advisors Face New Challenges Booking Land Packages with Wholesalers

The travel industry’s return post-COVID has brought new challenges for travel advisors, from managing client expectations to low supply. Among them is booking land packages with wholesalers, which have raised rates and are still short-staffed.

Itzel Rodriguez, director of weddings for Modern Destination Weddings, said that prior to COVID-19, most group room block rates through wholesalers would be approximately 10% less expensive than published room rates available online.

After COVID, however, “we’ve noticed the group room block rates are the same price or even more expensive than published room rates.”

This has created friction with clients.

“Even though we understand the benefits of group room blocks as travel advisors, such as securing the room inventory, locking in the rates, and gaining added concessions for the group, it is very difficult for us to get our clients to move forward with contracts, and the associated deposits and attrition penalties, when the rates are virtually the same as the published rates available online,” she said.

Frontline advisors have has to explain to clients not only supply and demand, but why rates are actually higher than when clients were traveling pre-COVID despite higher capacities.

Currently, Rodriguez said her team is having to negotiate lower rates on 4 out of every 5 groups. “In an attempt to streamline this back-and-forth contract process with our wholesalers, we always provide screenshots of the published rates we’re finding online, and when applicable, we request specific rates that are reasonable and fair, based on those published rates,” she said.

“Our relationships with our wholesalers are crucial. We wouldn’t be able to book the volume we do without them, so streamlining this process and reducing the back-and-forth has worked wonders in helping us continue to book successful groups where our wholesalers, our agency, and most importantly, our clients are happy.”

This issue is combined with suppliers being understaffed, with extensive hold times, slow responses to email inquiries, chat features are not functioning due to increased volume.

Jesse Aguirre, customer support manager for Modern Travelworks, has experienced these service issues firsthand with some wholesalers.

“In situations which require collaboration between the wholesaler and the hotel, such as securing a room that’s available directly through the resort but not through the wholesaler’s system, we’re finding agents are quicker to say ‘no’ than usual,” Aguirre said.

“We understand a lot of wholesalers are short-staffed and in the process of training new agents, so we just lean on our experience and knowledge of what can be done, and we try to be as high-direction as possible in our communication. We’ve been able to work around the issues, but the process has been a bit longer and more complicated.”

Some advisors, like Jolene Detillion of Your Travel Designer, described some suppliers taking days or weeks to get answers to requests for dining reservations, spa appointments and activities and then, “by the time we finally get a response, in many cases our clients preferred options are not available.” Service on property or within a destination can be very hit or miss as well. Hotels, restaurants, as vendors have not been able to, or have chosen not to, ramp up their staffing in time for the huge demand.