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Hannah Vincent Select World Travel
Canford Cliffs, Poole, Dorset
Hannah Vincent with the Select
World Travel team Select World Travel knows how to put on a show
Before Hannah Vincent first started to work for Select World Travel, she hadn’t heard of the agency. Based in an affluent area in a parade of businesses, rather than on the high street, there was no reason why she should have known the agency was there. But that got her thinking. How many potential customers were there in the area that didn’t know about Select World Travel? And how could that be improved? So the idea for a consumer show for existing and potential customers in the area
was born. “I had always had an idea in the back of my mind [for a show], so we came up with the idea of a Select World Travel Show as a team and then I started to email suppliers,” recalls Hannah. “The aim was to make more local people aware of us and the concept was like a
wedding fair. And we wanted to target the wedding market,” says Hannah, who also came up with the idea for a honeymoon gift service at the agency, which offers couples the chance to have friends and family donate towards the cost of their honeymoon. What started off as a plan to have 15 suppliers turned into 25 as operators saw the
marketing Hannah and her team were putting behind the show. Not only did the agency have two double-page advertorials in the Bournemouth
Echo, it also placed advertisements in a wedding magazine and a directory, which gave access to more clients online to market the event to. On top of that, Hannah and her staff put in their own legwork, literally, by
hand-delivering invitations to the show to houses near the agency. In total, 180 people attended and within a week Select World Travel had gained five bookings as a result of the show. The agency also held a raffle and raised £420 for
Hannah’s CV
●2011-14: senior travel consultant, then manager and now director, Select World Travel, Canford Cliffs, Poole, Dorset
●2009: senior cruise consultant, CruiseFinders, Bournemouth
●2005-08: travel consultant, SkyBargains, Bournemouth
●2003-05: trainee, and then travel consultant, Bath Travel, Southbourne
Dorset Air Ambulance. “We opened at 4pm and our first couple came at 3.50pm and from then on we had a constant flow of people until 6pm,” says Hannah. “At times you couldn’t move, there
were so many people. Suppliers said it was the busiest show they’d ever exhibited at.” Hannah is already planning another show next year. “We will definitely do
it again and next time suppliers might also give presentations. And we had tea and coffee and soft drinks but next year we might have wine too.”
HANNAH’S TIPS ON RUNNING A SHOW
✪ Be organised! Plan what you want to do, how you are going to do it and which suppliers you will invite to support it.
✪ Get the right venue: We chose The Italian Villa Compton Acres, often used for weddings. Make sure the venue matches your client base and has suitable space for the event.
✪ Market the event: Don’t just market the show in one place. We advertised in the local newspaper, in wedding magazines, on Facebook, through door-drops and in our shop window. We created professional invites that we distributed six weeks prior to the show.
Hannah Vincent with managing
director Kent Milne
Would you like to be profiled on Readers’ Lives? Tell us why it should be you! Email:
juliet.dennis@
travelweekly.co.uk
36 •
travelweekly.co.uk — 30 October 2014
✪ Keep suppliers updated: I emailed suppliers PDFs of the ads we were putting out so they could see what we were doing to market the event.
READERS’ LIVES
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