改变时代意味着旅行社一如既往地需要顾问
经过多里·萨尔茨曼(Dori Saltzman)/
For many suppliers, travel advisors are their primary source of business and there’s no evidence of that changing.
实际上,如果Covid-19教学教会了旅游行业的任何东西,那就是需要顾问,而不仅仅是依靠顾问在海外被困在他们家时将他们带回家的旅行者。在关闭期间,供应商依靠顾问作为中间人行事,交流政策,取消和重新预订(通常多次),并与客户保持联系,以便在需求反弹时能够更好地做出反应。
“你们对我们的业务非常重要。”加拿大加拿大航空公司假期销售总经理Marigold Frontuna在本月初在温哥华举行的Travel Market Report Travel Market Place West会议上告诉与会者。beplay客服“其他人是'我们想直接去',但这绝对不是我们正在追求的典范。”
Frontuna说,旅行顾问将占加拿大航空公司(Air Canada)假期业务的80%,并增加了ACV依靠顾问来了解加拿大航空度假产品和价值主张,并将其传达给其客户。
“You guys are a good source of information… especially now that the world has changed. Traveling is different and we’re going to rely on you to be an extension of our voice. You’re very important.”
Globus品牌家族开发的商业总监Carla Brake表示同意。在整个公司的品牌中,Brake Sabe Advisors占其业务的90%,这归因于该机构社区的能力,以确保旅行者在选择中找到合适的产品的指南。
“There are a lot of questions that come in and that’s where your value comes in. They need you to guide them and I don’t think that’s going to change. The pandemic brought to life the value of the travel agent that much more,” she said.
Travel Advisors的行驶量较小,G Adventures的业务(约70%),但G Adventures的加拿大国家销售经理Erin Rogers与Frontuna和Brake完全同意。
“We need you to be that first point marketing tool for us,” she said. “We really need you to introduce your clients to our style of travel for the first time… It’s why we pay commission and it’s also why we love you so much.”
Changing Times
小组主持人布莱恩以色列咯及其关联起来her, pointed out that not only do tour operators need the agency community as much as ever, the two are more alike than one might at first assume. Both had to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by pivoting and making changes they might, otherwise, never have made.
“尽管Covid为我们的行业带来了很多令人沮丧的事物,但我们也必须研究机会,” Air Canada Vacations Fortuna告诉观众。
对于ACV,它正在学习做出反应并更快地做出决策。“那是我们真正必须适应的事情之一,我们需要做出反应……无论情况如何,您永远都不会知道所有事实,所以做出决定。一旦测量结果,您就可以始终沿途正确。”
At G Adventures and the Globus family of brands, learning to be more flexible was their big takeaway.
“Within our business, we needed to become more flexible,” Rogers said, referring both to the company’s terms and conditions, as well as how they operate their tours.
例如,G Adventures实施了一项重新预订政策,该策略使客户可以在旅行前14天取消和重新预订。她说:“从逻辑上讲,这真是太疯狂了,因为我们在14天内重新销售该地点的机会非常苗条。”
但这是消费者需要的。
至于他们的旅行,G冒险必须学习如何敏捷以适应不断变化的法规,例如能够确保旅行者在旅行时可以进行测试,以便他们回到自己的祖国。
At Globus, flexibility was also important. So was having open conversations, Brake said.
“我们以前从未经历过这样的事情。因此,在与合作伙伴一起与顾问合作时,这是公开对话。我们该怎样帮助你?我们如何互相帮助?需要什么?”
技术支持
Many of the answers to those questions inspired suppliers to invest in technology in ways they hadn’t before. For instance, Brake said, no one wanted paper brochures anymore, because no one wanted to touch anything. Globus turned to digital channels, like email and their agency portal to provide information about itineraries.
该公司还必须找到方法将政策变化和行程停学与顾问更快地传达。再次,技术发挥了作用。
布雷克说:“从我们的方面来看,它可以使我们更容易获得……[代理门户网站]为每个人提供了如此丰富的信息,我们能够将所有东西都放在那里。”
Frontuna agreed. “It definitely was a bridge to connect with people without in-person contact,” she said. “It allows us to increase our engagement with the customers… it allows us to communicate a lot faster to you.”
G Adventures turned to technology to bring “tours to the consumer,” Rogers said. The company offered “virtual tours” with their CEO and tour guides explaining what it’s like to do a G Adventures tour in destinations around the world.
The panelists also agreed that technology has allowed travel advisors to be more self-sufficient, pointing out that there are lots of things they can get done on the agency portals without the help of a call center rep.
“I’m going to go there,” Frontuna joked with the audience. “It’s allowed us to enhance our technology so that you can better serve yourself because we know that the wait times out there are painful. There are many things that you can complete on your own to self-serve, freeing up the phone lines for agents who have legitimate needs to get through to us.”
罗杰斯(Rogers)回应了Frontuna,指出G Adventures Agent Portal具有实时聊天功能,可以收到问题的答案或更快地进行重新预订,而不是试图接触到呼叫中心。
A Behind the Scenes Look at Supplier Cancellations
过去几年中,最困难的方面之一是供应商稳定取消旅行。这些需要重新预订,通常是多次,所有这些都没有对旅行顾问的任何补偿。
主持人以色列要求小组成员谈论取消决定时在幕后发生了什么。
“我们的第一座右铭是快乐的客人,因此我们要确保我们提供的经验是客人所期望的,” Globus的刹车说。“当我们暂停旅行时,不是因为我们想要。这并不是说我们要从您或您的客户那里夺走任何东西。只是这不会是正确的假期。”
Rogers added that running a tour in a destination is logistically complicated. When the logistics don’t line up, there’s no point in trying to operate a tour – that’s assuming the local government would even allow them in.
“当涉及到确定我们运营的目的地时,我们必须考虑许多因素,以至于我们的运营和产品团beplay银行卡队提出了一个65页的文件,这是我们的内部清单,我们必须去通过在我们重新开放该目的地之前,请确保一切都排成一行。”
Things G Adventures looks at are vaccination rates, are guides vaccinated, and is there readily available access to medical supplies and facilities if a guest does contract COVID-19. Another question they ask, are the small, local communities that G Adventures operates in, even open to having international travelers?
“Not everyone wanted travelers back as quickly as we wanted to get back out there,” she added.