Brick And Mortar Travel Agents: Start Cooking Up New Revenue!

I recently read an interesting article in Fortune, “Travelers Are Embracing Human Travel Agents Again.” It focuses on how experienced agents are reinventing themselves to broaden their reach to consumers looking for leisure travel expertise. 

One of the “reinvented” agencies mentioned is Austin-based Departure Lounge, a Virtuoso member. According to the Fortune article, founder Keith Waldon interviewed more than 200 Austinites about their preferences for working with a travel agency before opening his, and found they wanted a fun, interactive experience that made them feel special. 

As a result, Departure Lounge opened a downtown brick-and-mortar agency that doubles as an upscale coffee and wine bar, and features large touch screens that showcase dreamy destinations. If a customer wants to speak with a travel agent, it matches her with an independent specialist. 

According to the article, there is an 83% closure rate whenever there is a face-to-face meeting. And this mash-up travel discovery zone has received amazing local and national press coverage!

This got me thinking of ideas that would be fun and interactive, and would generate bookings and additional revenue streams for brick-and-mortar agencies and home-based agents who partner with retail stores. 

Consider this: Many agencies and downtown retailers close their stores at 6:00. By extending these hours, agents may create a new revenue stream by offering travel destination-inspired weekly cooking classes. Why not invite past customers and their friends to attend hands-on cooking classes focused on destinations, hotels or cruise lines that you sell. Set a menu for each region, country or cruise line’s best-loved recipes, and conduct a series of cooking classes. Set-up is easy with hotplates…and tastings can be paired with regional wines.  

If you don’t cook, find friends who do, and give them a discount on their next trip booked with you. You may even get a local cooking school to go in with you, as practice for its students!

Charge $49 per person, per session—complete with tastings—and apply the cooking lesson fee to any package booked to that destination within six months. You may also charge for a cooking “series,” $249 for six cooking classes (one is free and one can be applied to a booking). You may even get regional cookbook authors to come in to do signings in your agency, once you’ve built a following, and sell their books too!

Tourist offices, cruise lines and hotels may want to participate in your cooking class evenings, and you can charge them sponsorship fees, as well as receive exclusive travel benefits for your customers. You can spread the word inexpensively through your local press, on your website, via email, signage in your agency or partner retailer, and social media sites (especially on your Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest pages, with gorgeous photography of the cuisine). Build frequency over time, and limit classes to six participants, so that you can build personal relationships that will go a long way to closing vacation bookings. 

If cooking is not your thing, how about offering painting classes, focused on different destinations. Or partnering with a wine store to promote tastings from around the world, with a slideshow and narrative of each destination, complete with matching travel offers? Or partnering with an outdoor/athletic retailer to promote adventure travel discussions, photos and offers? There are so many possibilities; just “find your passion and make it happen.”

So what are you doing to leverage your 9-5 agency location? With which other downtown retailers can you partner to create buzz in their stores, drive additional revenue AND book more vacation packages? What additional ideas can you come up with to build more face-to-face relationships, in order to expand your client base and close 83% of the time…or more?

Susan Black is an eCommerce and digital strategist, with a career successfully launching businesses and reinvigorating established brands within the travel industry. Susan assesses and advises host agencies, consortia, travel agencies and tour operators on their social, mobile and online strategies, to enable them to better compete in the ever-changing digital travel landscape. Her 60+ global clients include major brands in travel distribution, tour operation, airlines, hotels and resorts, travel tech companies, travel agencies and digital marketing agencies. Additionally, Susan delivers her high-energy, information-packed presentations, as a frequent speaker for travel, tourism and hospitality private groups and organizations. Follow Susan Black’s tips, news and revenue-producing ideas on Twitter @SusanTravels.