What would you do if you worked in a bricks and mortar storefront business and your walk-in traffic dropped by 50%?  Yikes, you’d probably be thinking about moving or advertising, right?

Well, as a travel, tourism or hospitality pro, moving is probably not in the cards.  So that leaves advertising.  Now that organic social reaching is dropping quicker than you can say ‘travel’, (some estimate a 50% drop year over year) we need to power up our social ad strategy.

Audience Expertise
Social ads are the ‘way of the world’ when it comes to sky-rocketing the number of people you reach online.  Creating custom audiences of people who want and need to travel is easy, then building ads that appeal to that audience is key to reaching the right people at the right time and on the right social site.

Did you know that you can target Facebook & Instagram ads by:

• Upcoming birthday or anniversary –think about all the milestone...

I was recently interviewing a prospective client, who repeatedly asked, “Dan, what are we going to do about my marketing plan?”  After reviewing her efforts, I told her, “Maybe a tweak or two - here and there - but for the most part your marketing is fine.” I replied, “What’s missing is a sales plan.”  The phone went silent, and I waited while she processed what I had said. “A sales plan?” she asked, “I’m not even sure what that is.  I thought all I needed was a marketing plan.”  As I explained the purpose of a sales plan, I could practically see the light go on in her head.

A marketing plan does not guarantee that you will sell anything.  It does guarantee a substantial investment to attract and retain clients, but I repeat – a marketing plan does not guarantee sales.

 As travel professionals, we operate on a business model virtually identical to our friends who sell real...

Many of us came into this business with high hopes and big dreams.  You poured your heart and soul into your business, but you keep hitting walls all around you.  24/7 is not enough and you can barely pay the bills, much less have anything left over to pay yourself.  Your spouse is pressuring you to quit. 

It is easy to quit and maybe you should.  However, in my opinion, if you are doing all the right sales activities, there is no reason why your travel agency should not be successful.

 As a teenager, I spent several summers working in a variety of construction jobs.  One of my favorites was with a masonry contractor building foundations.  I was so impressed by how meticulously the masons laid the blocks.  Just a fraction of an inch off level could have a disastrous effect on the rest of the structure.  The taller the building the more exaggerated the effect (picture the leaning tower of Pisa). 

Like a building, it’s the...

If your answer is "NO" and you were given an opportunity to hit the “Reset” button and reboot your travel business or career, would you do it?  

Virtually all travel professionals, whether new home-based agent or the general manager of a large, multi-location agency, struggle with similar challenges such as finding new clients, keeping the old ones happy, cash flow, and advertising to name just a few. 

You may have heard the expression “The tail is wagging the dog!” In my opinion, the biggest challenge we face, is building a business that you run, not one that runs you.

Michael Gerber author of The E-Myth (which I highly recommend) put it more eloquently, “If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business—you have a job. And it’s the worst job in the world because you’re working for a lunatic!”

I started both my travel and consulting businesses to gain the freedom from having a job and I imagine you...

My local newspaper, The Seattle Times, runs an immensely popular column called “Rant & Rave.”  Readers send in items such as this rant; “To the inconsiderate man at the Seahawks game who insisted on standing the entire time, my ten-year-old son wasn’t able to see any of the game thanks to you!” and this rave: “Bravo to the city bus driver who helps my elderly mother get safely cross the street.  Its people like you that restores my faith in mankind.”   It’s the little things that are big to people that make their way into this column each day.

As we approach the holidays, let’s take time to reflect and celebrate all the wonderful benefits the travel business provides us.

We are richer because of it.  Not just monetarily, travel is enriching physically, mentally, and emotionally.  We have the privilege to explore places that to most people are just a fantasy or pictures in a book. For us, it can...

Time management is something of an oxymoron to me. I will not even attempt to create the illusion that I am good at it. In fact, I am probably one of the biggest procrastinators you will ever meet. No, time management and I don’t get along.

But let me ask you this: Are your customers consuming virtually all your time? Do you feel like you must be available to your customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week or they will find someone else who is? Are your relationships at home strained because you are always “on”?

I see this every day at conferences, parties, dinners, and movie nights out with the family. It’s not unique to the travel industry, but unfortunately many of us have backed ourselves into this corner of which there seems to be no way out.

I have been there myself.  In fact, I spent over ten years totally devoted to my customers and it almost killed me. I ate at my desk, worked weekends and nights, kept my phone with me always. My family stopped...

I often get “love letters” from readers. Keep them coming, there are as many opinions as there are business models – trust me there are a lot!

On a recent Sunday morning while getting ready to watch our beloved Seattle Seahawks, I received an email from a reader. It was about how,after 2 years of starting his home-based travel business, his spouse is still not buying into his dream of a full-time career selling travel
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I could practically feel the desperation and frustration in his words.  It takes a tremendous amount of courage to write such a personal plea to someone you have never met. We all want and need the support of our families & friends in this business. Without it, another layer of stress is added to our need to succeed.

I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist, nor do I play one on TV; we will leave that to Dr. Phil. I do, however, have some experience when it comes to this from my past life with two travel franchise organizations.

I believe...

When everyone claims to be an expert, who should you trust? I have seen travel agents who barely know the difference between a hotel and a motel start social media groups, and suddenly have a following of thousands eagerly embracing their every word as it were the gospel.
 
Social media has given anyone with something to say a platform to share their opinion. While I can appreciate their passion, some of these forums are loaded with misinformation and unsubstantiated claims. It’s like the blind leading the blind.
 
I follow a number of online travel agent forums from around the world. Most are very good and offer travel professionals solid advice and networking opportunities. However, there are several that keep popping up on my radar.
 
The moderators use inflammatory rhetoric to whip their followers into an “us against them” frenzy. They attract anyone who will listen, in their pursuit against the OTAs, suppliers, and pretty much anyone who disagrees or...

How was your vacation?

I recently returned from a five day, solo backpacking adventure on a seventy-five-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington’s Cascade mountains. You may remember the PCT, the west coast version of the Appalachian Trail, from the bestselling book and movie, Wild.

I am an avid day hiker and have done a number of overnight backpacking trips - I have even climbed Mount Rainier, but I had no idea how physically challenging this endeavor would be.

Towards the end of the second day, I had already hiked fifteen miles with one to go. This last mile included a modest five hundred feet of elevation gain before reaching camp at the top of Cathedral Pass.  At this point, my legs were like jelly and I could go no further. As I sat there on the side of the trail, I quickly realized that I was out in the middle of one of the most remote sections of the entire PCT.  No one was going to come and get me, bring me water, or carry my forty-five-pound...

In case you missed it, the luxury and niche travel business has been exploding in growth. Tour operators are offering more upscale itineraries with custom built coaches and five-star hotels than ever before. Capacity in the luxury cruise segment increased by 45% in 2016 alone, and will double again by 2020. And of course, river cruising is still on a juggernaut, fueling the growth more than any other sector.

There is no shortage of customers either. Forget the millennials – at least for now. They are not what’s driving this boom. It is in fact- the “Boomers.” According to Northern Trust, a Chicago-based wealth management firm, more than 50% of the discretionary dollars available in the market today is in the hands of, you guessed it -the Boomers! Their number one interest just happens to be travel.

Folks, the opportunity is now and will be here for the foreseeable future. In my experience, I have seen a tremendous shortage of travel professionals who are...