their knowledge correctly, will always win out. A
ten year veteran however is still a new kid on the
block. A travel marketer with 20 or 30 years of
travel under their belt would have amassed a
huge knowledge base which is what we would
term ‘marketing currency’. It’s this currency that
travel trade veterans take to the bank.
The Marketing Mind-Set
Everywhere you look you should be picking
up new marketing ideas, images, quotes,
words, phrases and colour schemes. The skill
comes in looking, seeing, adjusting what you
have “taken in” and applying it to your niche
or your mass market selling activities.
Prior to how the message should be delivered
and to whom, comes the decision making
process on what to market based on current
economic conditions, world events, weather
systems, political change, currency fluctuation,
projected destination stability and the overall
flow of tourism.
You’ll be looking in retail shop windows for
sales banner slogans. Reading new book
titles for inspiration. Checking the images
and graphics on the sides of panel vans as
they drive past you. Reading t-shirt and ballcap slogans as they walk in your direction. Emails from suppliers also carry messages you
can use. Tour titles found in your supplier’s
brochures are worthwhile copying and filing
away in your marketing folders. If it sounds
like it’s ne ver ending you are right on the
money.
In the mix will come airline, airport, rail and hotel
strikes; seasons that have moved this way or
that; tsunamis and terrorist attacks, too. Some of
these events are so current that everyone has
knowledge of them and the outcomes that
evolved. This is also marketing currency you can
use.
The marketing mind set is all about using
whatever you can, legally, to promote the
type of travel you want to sell.
A travel agent with 20 years knowledge has
probably visited anywhere from 10 to 75
countries and cruised numerous times. Perhaps
taken a safari or climbed a well-known
mountain, trekked Inca trails and so on. Again, all
of their travel knowledge, their photographs,
video if they shot it, the destination artifacts and
information they gathered and very importantly
the personal and business contacts they made –
all of this is marketing currency and this
knowledge changes how they think and react to
present day events.
The mind of a travel marketer, or let’s say a
professional, street savvy travel marketer is
developed over time and operates differently
from the mind of someone new to the trade or
someone who holds a marketing degree but not
in travel or tourism. Experience, hands on
knowledge and a dedication to the history of
your trade is what separates the highly evolved
travel marketing mind from the rest.
To develop your marketing mind as a new homebased travel agent it’s time to travel, read, study
and if possible take a tourism marketing course
– or, seek out a travel marketing coach to study
under. It’s very important you develop the right
mindset to avoid ongoing frustration stemming
from zero response to your dedicated marketing
efforts. You have to know how to read the world
and apply your marketing ideas. It takes practice
at being very observant to what’s going on
around you and applying that knowledge to your
sales & marketing activities.
If you are new to selling travel and you are also
new to working from home, then you have a
steep uphill battle on your hands if you are
attempting to out-market your competitors. If
this is your situation then your job as of now, is
to pay attention to what your host agency is
offering you and buy in. Keyword: buy in – both
in attitude, commitment and financially.
A travel marketer who has 10 years of
experience to draw on, as long they interpret
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