NEWS CONFERENCE REPORT
Advantage Conference 2018: Delegates headed to the US for ‘The Next Chapter’. Ben Ireland reports from Miami
Julia Lo Bue-Said, Advantage
From left: Paul Nunn, Advantage; Carla Hutchings, Travel 2/Gold Medal; Jim Ratter, Holiday and Flight Centre; Sam Walton, Acomb Travel; and Chris Marks, Baldwins Travel Group
Don’t fear the follow-up call, agents are urged
Travel agents should not fear the follow-up call and take more time to try to close sales with customers who have already enquired, sales training specialists say. Reality Training’s Bob
Morrell and Jeremy Blake told Advantage members follow- ups were an easier sell than a new customer walking in. But they added that agents
generally prefer to deal with new enquiries than make the “awkward” follow-up call. Morrell said: “Typically, agents make their follow-up calls when it’s quiet, or nobody’s in the shop. This is a big habit in travel and a lot of agents are relieved when they hear the answerphone.” Blake added: “It’s good
customer service to follow up with the person you did a painstaking proposal for yesterday. It’s easier to convert that customer than deal with a new customer who walks though the door, but you have to leave an enthusiastic voicemail and give them something new.”
Advantage unveils Tour Finder comparison tool
The Advantage Travel Partnership used its annual conference to reveal a new comparison tool for agents to help them sell touring and adventure products.
Advantage Tour Finder allows members to compare information, itineraries and pricing from more than 10,000 tours worldwide – with the ability to browse by tour type, duration, cost, destination and operator. Developed and powered by
TourHound and accessible via mobile, tablet or desktop, Tour Finder will be live by the end of the month and exclusive to Advantage members. It will be free to use via the
Advantage members’ intranet site and a white-label version can be placed on an agent’s website or Facebook page for a monthly fee. Analytics will track trends based
on searches and responses. Tour Finder follows in the
footsteps of cruise comparison tool Cruise Finder, launched by
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travelweekly.co.uk 17 May 2018
“It will save us trawling through brochures looking for something suitable as it will all be in one place”
Advantage in October at its cruise conference, where 90% of agents in attendance signed up. Chris Dewey, manager of Solent
World Travel, said his cruise sales had increased by about 5% since he started using the tool. He said: “It’s really user-friendly and particularly useful when clients want to join a ship in farther-flung ports that we don’t have as much knowledge of. “Tour Finder will have a similar
effect. It will save us trawling through brochures looking for something suitable as it will all be in one place. Anything that can save us time and help us create better itineraries can only be good.” John Sullivan, Advantage head of commercial, said: “We are
incredibly excited to give our members a search tool suitable for Facebook that also back-links to members’ websites. “Advantage Tour Finder has been designed for agents who do not have a large technology development budget but do want an intelligent and easy- to-use platform that can be built and installed within a few hours. “It’s a market-leading product
that gives agents a suite of specialist products, and no other consortium or agent has anything like it right now.”
John Sullivan, Advantage
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