Travel Selling 101/ Selling Cruises
by John Hawks

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Let's talk first about soliciting testimonials in the first place. Don't worry that you must call clients out of the blue and ask them to pen a nice note thanking you for their latest vacation! Consider these tactics:

Stay in regular touch with your clients and ask for their feedback.

Your customers won't always take time these days to hand write a thank-you letter for you -- but, if you're sending email or print newsletters regularly, and you ask clients for feedback or suggestions, you're likely to see a steady stream of replies from which you can pull positive comments. (Always ask before you share them, however.)

Trade references with other businesses around town.

Let's say you partner with a local Realtor for leads that the two of you can exchange with each other for selling houses and vacations. Ask your friend if you can write a testimonial letter for him or her, in exchange for a letter on the Realtor's stationery praising what you do.

Collect testimonials via a short-and-sweet survey.

You can send a two- or three-question survey (don't make it much longer!) to your clients via mail or email. (Another excellent method is using online surveys with a company like SurveyMonkey.com, which works free if you're sending to a small number of your best customers.) Leave one question open-ended, so that clients can write a couple of sentences about what they like when they deal with you. (And, again, always ask for permission to use the testimonial quote before you go out with it.)

Finally, use the testimonials in every marketing task.

Sounds like common sense, right? Testimonials won't work for you, though, if you don't share them all over the place! Post them on your Web site, in your emails (as a signature line, perhaps), on your invoices and passenger documents, on the back of your business cards -- anywhere that other clients and prospects will see them!

Selling Cruises: World Cruising

At a time when the world's largest cruise lines have built their empires on hundreds of thousands of Americans who've taken long-weekend or seven-day sailings to the Caribbean and Mexico, what's surprising to many experienced travel agents is the strength of a growing niche: around-the-world cruises.

These trips -- high-end cruises that can run several weeks to many months at a time, with price tags up to $250,000 per person -- have drawn more cruise lines into this segment of the travel market. Cunard Line reports so many requests for cabins on its well-known global cruise each year that it's planning two trips at the same time in 2007. Holland America Line switched to a larger ship for its 2007 world cruise, and Silversea Cruises will offer its very first global sailing that same year (building on its new series of 34- to 123-day cruises this year).

What draws your clients to world cruises? One big attraction is the combination of exotic destinations with onboard amenities. In other words, these travelers can explore new ports of calls that will seldom appear on any cruise line's typical itineraries -- while, at the end of each day, enjoying the comfort of haute cuisine and a good night's sleep in their familiar cabins or suites.

For other cruisers, global cruises offer them the chance to "collect" destinations -- to cross off spots like Libya, Fiji, or the Galapagos Islands from their lists of places to visit before they die. (In fact, so many world cruisers are repeat bookers that the cruise lines offering such sailings must juggle their itineraries each year to attract the same travelers again.)

In a strange way, the value of world cruises is the third reason for the growing popularity of this niche. You could never arrange an "FIT" trip for your best clients that would take them to the same range of destinations found in the typical world cruise itinerary for the same price (figuring in the airfares, hotel nights, and other trip components that would be required to duplicate the experience).

Which cruise lines do the best job with world cruises? Clearly, the top operators in this niche are three cruise lines with extensive experience in around-the-world sailings: Crystal, Cunard, and Holland America. Now, Silversea has joined the group. (Seabourn is another cruise line to consider for upscale cruises exceeding 30 days.)

Which clients make the best prospects for around-the-world sailings? Of course, your first instinct will be focusing on retired professionals and business owners who have the money and the unfettered time to hit the high seas for several months at a stretch. However, you should remember one secret of global cruising today: Many cruise lines will sell segments of their world sailings after an initial reservation period. In other words, they will split a 120-day world cruise into four or eight or more sections and -- after repeat cruisers and other top prospects have had the chance to book cabins for the whole trip -- they will open those segments for bookings from other travelers. If you have upscale clients with time limitations (or middle-class clients who've saved up for the trip of a lifetime), you can introduce them to world cruising a week or two at a time. (You can also review the world cruise segments for key ports of call that may appeal to your more adventurous travelers who may never find another trip that hits that city or destination from the comfort of a cruise ship.)

As more baby boomers approach retirement, they present the "perfect storm" of qualifications for world cruising: They have more disposable income than many other retirees, and they're eager to indulge themselves in once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Give them the chance to live out their dreams with a segment (or the whole trip!) of an around-the-world cruise.