Agent Hones Group Tour Market Through Radio Listeners

In developing her highly successful group tour and cruise business, an enterprising Dallas agent has long found a ready market among radio listeners.

Sharon Carr, president of Sharron Carr Tours and Cruises in Dallas, began promoting tours through local radio sations in the 1960s. In the 49 years since, she has created 15,000 trips and sent more than half a million people on group cruises, safaris, resort packages and other adventures.

Carr works with three Texas radio stations on a regular basis – KLUV, KTBB and KAAM. She previously created tours for KVIL, but when legendary radio personality Ron Chapman, seeing his audience getting older, moved to KLUV in 2000, her agency moved with him and now puts together more tours for the oldies station than any other.

FITs as well as groups
Although groups are Carr’s specialty and she has done them for organizations ranging from the Exxon Mobil retirees association and the Dallas Margarita Society as well as the radio stations, 20% of her agency’s business is FITs.

Many of these are repeat business from people who took a radio trip. Others come because they heard about her agency on the radio, further proof that radio has been the key to success of her agency, which now has total annual sales of between $6 and $10 million.

Great response rate
While some of Carr’s groups are as small as 40 people, they have been as large as 2,000. In some cases, the response rate is so great that it turns into multiple bookings.

In 1999 she contracted with Carnival to do a cruise over Labor Day for KVIL radio station in Dallas and reserved 250 cabins. The radio announcer teased it for a week and when he finally announced it, the trip sold out in a day, with 1,600 people on a waiting list.

Carnival told her if she could wait for two weeks, they’d give her the whole ship. “The announcer went on the air and said that they’d taken the whole ship, and we had people out the door and around the block,” Carr said.

She kept the 250 cabins of the original date, sold out the entire ship for the two-week-later departure and sold another 200 people on two more successive dates.

“I was the largest single booking for a single agency in Carnival’s history,” Carr said.

Wide range of trips
While this may be a bit unusual, her trips often sell out quickly. Three years ago she sold out 900 spaces on Carnival in three days and recently sold out an on-air trip to Mt. Rushmore, Salt Lake City and Jackson Hole, Wyo., in 30 minutes.

Among other popular trips are Alaska cruises, Hawaii and what she calls the exotics – Africa, Peru and the Galapagos, Vietnam and the Antarctic. In September, she took a group of 50 to the Spring Creek Ranch near Jackson Hole where they were taught to fly fish. Carr has also sent groups to Boston for July 4th, incorporating the Boston Pops concert.

She also sells a lot of Trafalgar motor coach tours, as well as Trafalgar trips in low season.

“We have sent people to France and all over Europe at Thanksgiving and in February, because we get such deals then,” she said. “People understand they have to bundle up, but when they pay half price they’re willing to do it.”

Sometimes vendor-driven
Usually Carr suggests the destination, and it will sometimes be vendor-driven, when they offer her a special. Her agency works with Uniworld, and when she found out it was going to do cruises in Vietnam, she convinced them to start a week early so she could charter the entire River Saigon boat.

“Vendors know we have a quick turnaround, and if they have some cabins that need to be sold, they call us and ask us if we can do a special incentive to get it on the radio,” Carr said. “We’ve done cruises with as little a lead time as two months.”

Selling suppliers on the benefits of airtime publicity gets her great group rates. “The suppliers understand they get publicity they don’t pay for. They pay for it indirectly. They give us the best rates they can. And we promote the trip on the radio,” she said.

And her agency doesn’t have to take all of the risk. Her contract with the stations ensures that. If the trip doesn’t sell, she doesn’t have to pay the station, but that rarely happens. In the past 10 years, she’s only cancelled two trips.

Market challenges
The advertising fees she does pay the stations are on a per-person basis, depending on the number of people they sell into the group and on a sliding scale depending on the price of the trip.

“If you have to pay the regular advertising rate, you can’t make it up in bookings, especially if you’re starting out because you don’t have the following of the listeners,” Carr said. “The margins are low, so it’s a very, very tough market to get into.”

The radio station gets to make a decision on the first choice for an escort, often one of its personalities. If it can provide one, Carr or someone else from her agency will lead the group.

Business is brisk, but there can be stumbling blocks. “Airlines are the biggest challenge. Getting enough seats and getting them at a fair price is the biggest challenge,” Carr said, adding that radio stations are pretty supportive if things have to be changed.