07 July 2009

Now is the time for businesses to work together to boost sales

TravelMole Guest Opinion by Rajan Sawhney, sales director, The Holiday Team

From selling online to local advertising campaigns, continued marketing is more important than ever in recession.

We all need to get customers through the door, online and picking up the phones. But when budgets are tight marketing is an easy line to cut.

With limited funds it’s hard to make an impact. How do you cut through the media noise and get your message heard?

At a time when agents are reviewing costs on every level suppliers to the travel trade need to be innovative and offer something extra to help agents increase their profit in difficult times.

Now is the time for businesses with shared commercial interests to work together to develop plans which will help to boost sales.

This week we launched a commitment to our travel agency partners to assist them with marketing advice and support.

And on a selective basis we’ll even offer a financial package to help with marketing.

There have been a few raised eyebrows when we’ve mentioned this to people. The prospect of offering a pot of money to jointly fund campaigns is something unusual.

But these are unusual times and we need to create solutions together. Where there is potential to grow business for mutual benefit we need to look at new ways of working with our travel partners.

This is the time when suppliers must share best practice about marketing, web development, online selling, technology and customer relationship building.

The advice and even financial support will appeal to some independent agents who need to maximise profit but don’t have the in-house resource to give proper guidance about the practicalities of promoting their business.

As part of good management, it’s essential to keep reviewing supplier relationships to make sure they are offering the best value for money and the best possible service both pre and post booking.

I’ve known businesses which have saved thousands of pounds per year just by simply switching suppliers. But it’s not just cost. Choosing the right travel partners which have modern technology and marketing support can become an extension of any business and save time and share cost. And ultimately offer a better service to clients.

I’d recommend conducting a supplier audit on a regular basis. And that means everything from preferred flight, hotel and tour operators to printers and marketing agencies.

Keep an eye on new companies entering the market who may be able to offer better prices and offer more support to your business. Long-lasting partnerships should be valued but should not become complacent.

Travel agents are the lifeblood of many travel businesses and new players are coming into the market despite the recession.

These companies are keen to gain market share and will be snapping at the heels at some of the more well established operators.

They want your business and will bend over backwards for you. And that could even extend to funding where there is potential for sales.

Post your comment

Your Comments (2)

Support to sales

Rajan, You speak wise words. Development of sales starts with the resort goes through the operators and ends up on the net and in the shop. Anyone that ignores the chain, or a link in it, is heading for the rocks. Unless, of course, you have integrated backwards and forwards, like the big guys. The issue 'we' have is with the oligopy that exists, the smaller operators think they can act like the big guys and not co-operate together with agents on a meaningful business footing. Everyone is competing and the over abundance of supply will cause failures; no question. We are developing a system to give independent agents, and the keyword their is independent, access to our back office to sell direct to the client in the shop. Our rates are consistent no matter who the agent is or how big they are. We believe that if we bring agents into the business not just as partners but see them as part of our own the relationship will be more fruitful and through it sales will flurish. Cooperation not competition.

By Andy Parr, Friday, July 10, 2009
..Dead right... but it's more than that...

For donkeys' years we have been stuck on a roundabout (or 'in a rut', as you prefer) of cut-throat, dog-eat-dog competition where the thought of co-operation or 'co-opetition'is anathema. We are belatedly realising in this crisis that there are other avenues open to us, largely because we are discovering how wasteful all-out competition can be and that we have little alternative but to cooperate at some level because the budgets are no longer there at the level of the individual business. Good to see this stimulated in this example in the private sector, because, in fact, (and perhaps somewhat surprisingly), the public sector has, for some considerable time, been leading the way in developing Tourism partnerships and cooperative ventures and offering opportunity for the private sector tourism industry to get involved. Take the Dorset and New Forest Tourism Partnership, for example: a visionary partnership initiated by all the local authorities of the region with the intermediary assistance of Bournemouth University and other NGO partners providing considerable 'seedcorn' monies up front over a period of years now, then securing EU matched funding to provide a considerable range of opportunities for the Tourism industry to engage in projects such as: skills audits and improvement / training, benchmarking, co-operative marketing and market research, ICT innovations etc. The regional Tourism industry has more than begun to realise that working together, sharing data, pooling budgets etc the area can compete more effectively as a macro-destination. In-region competition is then, of course, 'fair game', but there should be a bigger slice of the 'cake' to compete for courtesy of the preceding degree of cooperation. High time for more of this. If not now, then when, exactly?

By Tony Jolley, Tuesday, July 7, 2009