Travel Niches / Travel Books
by John Hawks

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Two final pieces of advice for targeting bank travel clubs:

1. Don't give up easily. Many banks with active clubs plan their travel a year in advance, and they can be slow in trusting new vendors. If you don't succeed this year, pitch the bank again in six to nine months. The tradeoff you'll find is that, once you're in the door, many banks can be extremely reliable clients -- generating steady sales for you year after year.

2. Stress your reliability. Banks are not in the travel business -- they simply want to retain the loyalty of older clients who have more assets to invest in the bank. The last thing any bank wants is dissatisfied depositors who hated their last trip! Your years of experience, your insurance coverage, your compliance with state travel rules . . . these plusses must be stressed when you pitch any potential bank group.

For more information, check out www.banktravel.com and www.banktravelmanagement.com. Good luck!

Travel Books

If you could pick only one basic travel guide to keep on your desk, here's a great choice: "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" by veteran travel guide writer Patricia Schultz.

This 972-page paperback chronicles the world's top tourism spots -- devoting less than a page apiece to well-known attractions (the Great Wall of China, the hills of Tuscany) and off-the-beaten-path destinations (fly fishing in Montana, Robert Louis Stevenson's home in Samoa).

Her around-the-world entries (grouped by continent) offer great advice on how to find each spot and when to visit, along with phone/fax numbers and Web sites for further research.

Plus, this guide is perfect for brainstorming ideas to please your well-traveled clients who ask, "I don't know where I want to go this year -- what do you think?"

"Newsweek" gave the book a glowing review, saying it "tells you what's beautiful, what's inspiring, what's fun and what's just unforgettable everywhere on earth."

You can buy the actual book -- or a new page-a-day calendar edition! -- at your local bookstore or on Amazon.com.

(2003: Workman Publishing Company)

* John Hawks -- OSSN's news editor -- was the founding editor of "Bank Travel Management," the national trade magazine for bank loyalty program directors.