社交媒体提高了目的地婚礼专家的标准
经过Richard D'Ambrosio/
Social media is a driving force in consumer vacation travel habits, but nowhere may it be more impactful than destination weddings.
一群专家小组在《纽约时报》旅行展上发表讲话说,郁郁葱葱的视觉图像的影响力和影响正在推动更多的夫妻寻找越来越独特的体验,这将使他们的目的地婚礼壮观。
Sandos Hotels&Resorts业务开发总监Heidi Verschaeve说,一对夫妻决定订婚的时刻开始了压力。“提案视频正在流行。他们想在一个独一无二的目的地吹嘘家人和朋友。”她说。
Social media-savvy wedding clients are looking for “very unique locations. Everyone is already aware of the typical beach locations. They’re looking for preserves and parks, tropical gardens, places that make a wedding even more unique. Private rooftop terraces are flourishing like mushrooms,” she said.
Gina Johnson, wedding and romance sales manager at Playa Hotels & Resorts, recently worked with a couple who took over a sanctuary in the Dominican Republic.
One out of four marriages are destination weddings today, said Lisa Sheldon, executive director of the Destination Wedding & Honeymoon Specialists Association. With more than 340,000 destination weddings booked annually, averaging $28,000 each, this niche can be extremely prosperous for travel agents. Sheldon said about 15 percent of those weddings are luxury travel sales, and can generate even higher commissions.
Agents can relieve information overload
但是,就像夫妻对目的地婚礼的期望增加一样,他们对良好旅行社的需求也是如此,宾夕法尼亚州北威尔士的Honeymoons and Getaways的老板Nancy Barkley说。
“他们打电话给您时说的第一件事是他们在信息过载。他们真的想要您的指导。他们想知道什么是最新趋势,最好的目的地。beplay银行卡他们想成为第一个做新事物并拥有吹牛权利的人。”巴克利说。
Playa Hotels & Resorts has been sensing this overload from its clients, so it recently launched a new destination wedding website to simplify the research process, said Johnson.
凭借基本的核心软件包和自定义的能力,该网站正在满足夫妇个性化他们的体验的需求。在桑多斯(Sandos),当今有10%的业务是Verschaeve所说的“夫妻俩可以自定义的婚礼。这是我们过去2 - 3年来增加的事情。”
In other trends, destination wedding couples and their wedding parties are doing more after the ceremony. Johnson recommends that since, at many resorts, activities booked through the hotel are commissionable, travel agents should be pre-booking more activities. “Once they get on the property, they are buying these experiences anyway. You can get paid for booking a group going bicycling or ziplining,” Johnson said.
如何产生新的销售线索
所有小组成员都同意寻找目的地婚礼客户确实需要花费时间和金钱的投资。Playa Resorts的Johnson说,最重要的来源是您目前正在进行的婚礼的客户列表。
“It is almost guaranteed that someone in the wedding party will be getting engaged in a year. Destinations weddings sell the next destination wedding,” Johnson reminded attendees.
Bridal shows may not be a good source, others said, because most cater more to local weddings. Barkley said her biggest destination wedding came from a client she met at a wine expo sponsored by the Italian tourism board.
“I attended because Italy is a very popular honeymoon destination for me. Someone pulled me aside and asked me if I did destination weddings. To date, that is one of my largest destination weddings ever,” she said.
Working with travel agents, Verschaeve feels they need to be more planful working bridal shows. “Most of them are held January through March. And an agent will get a batch of email addresses, and maybe follow-up. But then you get caught up in Wave Season, updating your blog, booking spring break trips,” she said. Then, in the summer, “you’re wondering, ‘Why hasn’t that bride contacted me?’ Of course, she hasn’t. She’s only heard from you once, probably isn’t getting married in a year, and she isn’t going to remember that travel agent from the bridal show in January. You need to have a better follow-up marketing plan to stay in front of her periodically.”
其他小组成员使用为现有客户使用客户关系管理软件促进,并定期检查一下,简单地查看客户生活中发生了什么。“对于您作为旅行社,您需要注意与您一起工作的一对夫妇在一起一段时间。其中一个可能正在考虑提议。” Verschaeve说。
第二次婚姻尤其如此。根据谢尔顿的说法,有80%的目的地婚礼夫妇至少以前结婚一次。
“Because they are more mature, the wedding groups that used to be about 20 people, even two years ago, can be double that size now,” Johnson said, accounting for the couple’s older children, and a broader network of friends with established careers and incomes.
Finally, agents should not forget where romance travel all began – booking honeymoons – which cost about two-thirds more than a regular vacation, Sheldon said.
Globus品牌家族的东部地区销售经理辛迪·沙利文(Cindy Sullivan)表示,该公司的会标系列正在出售最热门的蜜月旅行者,因为独立的套餐旅行减少了一对夫妇在手中承受足够压力的时候的计划。
沙利文说:“杀死浪漫的最快方法是为蜜月的物流争论。”