理解和销售健康旅行的提示
经过戴恩·泰勒(Daine Taylor)/
In the last few years, there has been a significant increase in people engaging in wellness travel as a means to relax, reboot, or reestablish their sense of inner balance. As more and more travelers opt to take charge of their physical and mental health, advisors should be aware of this growing niche and know what it is and how best to sell it to their clients.
为此,上周的《纽约时报》旅行展期间举行了一个小组,由加拿大旅行市场报告执行董事杰拉尔丁·里伊(Geraldine Ree)领导。beplay客服几位旅行专业人士讨论了健康旅行是什么,以及顾问开始销售之前需要知道什么。
什么是健康旅游业?
Typically, wellness tourism is travel for the purpose of promoting health and well-being, and is usually placed into one of four categories: traditional medicine, preventative medicine, fitness mind and body, and healthy eating/weight loss.
Wellness travel is a massively growing segment of the travel industry, accounting for nearly 17% of all global tourism. However, in order to be able to sell wellness travel, agents will first need to understand what it is, and what it involves.
希尔顿全球健康高级总监梅利莎·沃克(Melissa Walker)表示:“我想说的是,我在希尔顿(Hilton)的四年中最大的变化是,了解健康是非常整体的。”“以前,款待非常集中在水疗中心和健身方面,两者之间确实没有任何东西。”
Since then, many travel organizations have embraced the wellness model, and cater to the varying needs of travelers. But as this niche continues to adapt and grow, so too, does the approach that travel advisors take need to evolve.
“其中很多实际上是关于顾问的理解,即需求已经存在,愿望就在那里,有时人们只是不知道他们有这种愿望。这就是您的工作,可以通过向客户提问并吹嘘自己所知道的东西来带出这种愿望。”沃克说。
Who’s going?
那些出售健康旅行的人已经开始看到有关谁想要去以及原因的趋势。在过去的几年中,许多从未考虑过健康度假的新移民一直在进行。出于心理健康目的旅行也有所增加。
One aspect of wellness travel that the panel discussed was the sense of community that clients feel when they are engaged in wellness travel with others, or even solo. “When you think about physical wellness or emotional wellness, there’s a lot of opportunity to feel better when you connect with other people,” said Jenn Lee, VP of sales and marketing, for Travel Planners International.
“我认为即使独自旅行……他们也不想被隔离。有机会与更大的社区建立联系。”
小组重点关注的另一个部分是家庭旅行。虽然家庭健康度假胜地仅占整体健康旅行的一小部分(约8%),但对更多包括家庭的服务和活动的需求越来越大,以满足儿童和青少年的需求。
“我们已经看到了这种趋势的家庭ness trips in Costa Rica, and we are starting to think that it’s because they need to reconnect with [each other], and they need to find the right environment to do that,” said Adalberto Rodriguez-Fallas, marketing executive for the Costa Rica Tourism Board.
“It’s interesting to see, even though [family wellness] is still a small number of trips, I think it has the potential to grow.”
健康与可持续性
长大的健康旅行的另一个方面是它与可持续性的先天联系。
“If you’ve got somebody you’re helping and sustainability and travel is important to them, chances are wellness is, as well,” said Walker. “If you have a respect for your world, you most likely will have respect for your body.”
许多为健康旅行的人都想知道他们的旅行将如何影响当地社区,目的地和整个世界。随着人们对气候变化和超级旅游的认识,这些有意识的旅行者希望尽可能减少住宿的负面影响。
“Their clients want to know, ‘Is the destination, product or company friendly to the environment? What are they doing from a sustainability standpoint?’” said Steve Smotrys, VP of sales for Cunard. “There is a huge aggressive push to eliminate the carbon footprint.”
旅游行业的几乎所有细分市场已经开始采用从航空公司和巡游到酒店的可持续旅行解决方案。
沃克补充说:“我们的设计师确实在考虑如何使用天然材料设计而不是人造材料设计。”“希尔顿的可持续发展有很大的推动力,但也只是为了获得绿色植物。”
牢记客户的需求
Understanding what wellness travel is and what it can provide, and balancing that with what your clients want and expect from a wellness vacation, is needed to ensure these trips go as planned. “If a travel advisor is unsure and not confident on where to send [clients], what destinations to send them, what type of hotel, what type of cruise line … then they’re not going to put it together,” said Walker.
健康不一定意味着水疗和冥想。有时,这可能只是逃避日常生活的陷阱。“当我们不断地分心我们的生活时,这变得越来越成为一场斗争。我认为人们正在忘记生活。他们忘记了现在很重要,分享经验真正重要的是。“我认为,作为旅行顾问,您有一个很好的机会为这些客户提供新产品和新信息。”
所以,这是非常重要的顾问去理解the destination and the product, but also to understand their own clients, and what they’re looking to get out of a wellness vacation. It’s that leadership to help educate the consumer that makes a travel advisor’s job easier.
Rodriguez-Fallas说:“一旦我们了解了客户的需求,对我们来说将会更好,因此我们可以提供更好的产品,更个性化,更适合客户。”