How To Make the most of a fam Have a good trip
author: Charlotte Cullinan Some say there aren’t as many fam trips as there used to be. But if you can use
them as an effective training tool, you could be making more use of your passport
available to customers in store too. “They contain things like restaurant recommendations, and then as part of the selling process we offer to book tables for them,” she says.
F
am trips are never guaranteed in these days of strict supplier budgets. And with fewer staff in an agency, time out of the
office has to be justified. Being able to travel the world is a treat, but one that must be earned. Fam trips prove such a source of knowledge
for the team at Haslemere Travel that they now produce an annual glossy customer magazine to tell clients about the past year’s trips. This January, 6,000 clients will get the latest
edition of Pure Shores, a magazine packed with reports from the team’s adventures; managing director Gemma Antrobus hopes it will inspire clients. “I see fams as product training,” she says. “We work like a consultancy so our knowledge helps us sell holidays.”
Spreading the joy Travel Designers managing director Nick Harding- McKay agrees that sharing destination knowledge with clients helps business. During trips, he asks his three agents to take photos and videos on their phones, which are then used across the firm’s social media platforms. “This is basic marketing, but it works. There’s nothing like seeing something for yourself, and it brings it into reality when you talk about it to customers,” he says. Many agents see fams as a chance to gain
5 tips for: fam trip success
Safe storage Packing a sturdy folder means documents gathered on trips return safely. Store in a dedicated area so they can easily be shown to colleagues and clients.
Stay social Pique customers’ interest while you are abroad by sharing photos and videos on social media, and personally update relevant clients upon your return.
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TTGLUXURY.COM WINTER 2015 BUSINESS OF TRAVEL
Collect contacts Skinner recommends forging contacts with hotel managers and sales teams on fams and gets back in touch with specific needs on future bookings.
Share the love Haslemere Travel has a post-fam document that everyone must complete and ensures all aspects of a trip are shared among the team.
Image bank Travel Designers’ agents collate their digital fam photos in a joint folder and relevant images are sent to clients via Dropbox when they make an enquiry.
insider knowledge. After seeing several honeymooners onboard the Venice Simplon- Orient-Express during a Kirker Holidays fam to Italy this year, Antrobus recommended it to honeymooning clients, who eagerly booked. “It was perfect for them, and I’d never have suggested it if I hadn’t seen it, as I imagined I’d only see retired couples onboard,” she says. Tiffany Woodley, owner of Myriad Travel,
recommends collecting printed information on trips, and regularly brings back tourist board maps, brochures and menus. In 2014, she went on a Silversea educational and kept her daily programmes. Her team write blog entries about their fams and printed copies are then made
Soaking up the atmosphere For Holidaysplease personal travel consultant Luke Skinner, the key to a successful trip is experiencing the “intangible elements” as a customer would on holiday. “You can look up facts and figures online when you return, but it’s important to absorb the atmosphere,” he says. He applied this technique when he
attended a ttgluxury Experience to Vietnam in 2013. The group of four were the first UK agents to visit the
Laguna Lang Co resort in central Vietnam, home to Banyan Tree and Angsana hotels. After updating key customers on his return, Skinner secured three bookings, including one for £15,000, as well as briefing his team of four agents, who also went on to make bookings. From an operator’s perspective, as well as
boosting sales, fams excel at helping to build long-term relationships with agents. ITC Luxury Travel Group runs an average of 12 fams a year, each taking about six months to plan. However, partnership director Lee Marshall says the trip is “very much the start of the journey”, as the team stay in touch with the agents for at least a year to remind them of their experiences. “It's not just about the destination itself,
but also about reinforcing the ‘difference’ of booking with one of our brands,” says Marshall.
Pictured 1. Haslemere Travel’s Pure Shores magazine 2. Holidaysplease’s Luke Skinner in Vietnam 3. Travel Designers blog
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