Selling Travel 101: Giving the Gift of Travel
by John Hawks

article continued from

The concept is simple. Your clients pay you money in advance, and in return you issue them personalized gift certificates (e.g., a coupon, a letter on your agency’s stationery) that they can mail or offer in person as a gift. Later, the recipient of the gift certificate will contact you to redeem it (meaning you’ll apply the money paid to you in advance toward their chosen trip).

Suppliers like Carnival Cruise Lines have jumped on the holiday gift bandwagon in a big way. Carnival offers agents a wide range of gift cards, posters, and other sales materials designed to spur purchases of cruise certificates. One popular item this year was a holiday card containing a sound chip that plays the Carnival theme song! (Check with Carnival directly at www.bookccl.com for more details.)

Travel gift certificates will boost your revenues in many ways. First, you’ll receive cash upfront this holiday season that you can deposit (and earn interest on) for future trips. Then, when those gift recipients redeem the certificates, they usually spend more than the value of the certificate (with shore excursions, travel insurance, and other add-ons). And, you may succeed in keeping the recipients as new clients for their future travel plans (and holiday gift-giving plans), too!

If you decide to offer travel gift certificates this year, remember these tips:

Plan in advance whether you will sell denominated certificates or entire trips. For example, will you offer certificates for dollar amounts (e.g., $25, $50, $100), or will you only sell certificates for an entire trip (e.g., $349 for a four-day Caribbean cruise)? Many agents find it much easier to sell only denominated amounts – and, these certificates are also much more likely to generate “upsells” when they’re redeemed later.

Keep these funds completely separate from your general operating account. Treat these sales as trip deposits, and consider holding them in a separate savings account, for example. You don’t want to run the risk of spending this money now and coming up short when those recipients come to you in February to book their cruises!

Design your certificates so they’re difficult to counterfeit. Keep a separate ledger showing each certificate’s purchaser, dollar value, date of sale, and other details – and print individual numbers (e.g., “0001,” “0002,” and so on) on each certificate so that you can match it against the ledger later if you suspect that a client has forged a certificate.

(Photo credits: Carnival Cruise Lines)