Super Agent: A Flair For Facebooking On Fams Draws In Customers And Hoteliers

You can pooh-pooh social media if you like, but for Chandre Casey, Facebook has been the only marketing tool she has ever needed. And just six years after opening I WANT TO TRAVEL in Wading River, NY, she has so much business that she’s had to hire two more travel agents to help her handle it.

A “woman of a certain age,” Casey is not someone who grew up with a cellphone in her hand. But with no budget for advertising, she found Facebook to be a great way to promote her business to existing clients—and to attract new ones wherever she goes.

“I started a Facebook page with all the destinations I’ve been to, and now people follow me there. On Feb. 21, I posted, ‘Okay, it’s that time again, let’s take a cruise on Royal Caribbean!’ and by the 24^th I had 60 people signed up.”

It’s not just return customers who find her through social media, either. “If I’m on a fam to Jamaica or Antigua, while the other travel agents are sitting around, I’m there with my cell phone going, my camera on, taking pictures and posting them, and as I’m posting people around me at the hotel are watching and laughing. And when I’m done, they’ll come up and talk to me—and I’ll get a referral,” she said.

On her last fam trip, to the Barceló Bávaro Palace in the Dominican Republic, Casey snapped away—photos of the food, the lobby, the location—and by the time she was done chatting with the guests who came over, she had two groups, one of 17 and one of 18, looking to book their next vacation with her.

When they do go, she will have them download WhatsApp onto their phones “so if they need anything when they are on the ground they can reach out to me and find me, so I can take care of any problem while they are there,” she said. “I like to be very one-on-one; it’s all about personal relationships, and I have contacts at all the hotels.”

Wherever she goes, Casey says, that clicking camera attracts new customers and hotel employees eager to be part of her story.

“I want business development managers to know who I am, and customers to know I am focused on them. When I have a customer on a cruise, I do their boarding passes, their dining, their luggage tags, and I follow up when they get off the ship to make sure there were no problems. If they didn’t like the food or the service, if they were at Sandals and didn’t like the butler, they won’t go back if they are not happy, and it will reflect on me. I’m in this for the long term; I’d rather have five bookings from one client than one big booking after which they never come back.”

The drawback of all this online attention is that the Internet never sleeps. But then again, neither does Casey’s brain. “My brain kicks in 24-7,” she laughs. “It’ll be 1 a.m. and I’ll be on the site networking.”