Why you need a newsletter
You probably have a web site, but you should also have an informative newsletter, suggests “The Travel Insider.” “A newsletter with rich content that is sent out regularly is a way to push information rather than to just have a passive web site where people may come back, but will often not act,” said David M. Rowell, who terms himself as “aka The Travel Insider.” He began publishing a free newsletter soon after selling his successful travel wholesale company that specialized in trips to New Zealand and Australia. He sends out 10,000 print copies a week, and has about 1,000 visitors a day at his web site. Most people in the travel business have a web site, he said, but many don’t take it a step further and send out a newsletter. For those who say they are in the travel business, and not in existence to provide information, Mr Rowell said they are simply mistaken. “Sure, we make a living selling things like room nights, but really what we are in is the information business. Our prime purpose is selling information,” he said. The two major areas of importance in a newsletter are the quality of the information and a regular schedule, he added. Mr Rowell said he thought travel agents that continue to function as generalists would tend to fail in the future. “Believe it or not, some agents react angrily when I say they can’t know everything about everywhere in the world,” he said. Instead, he said, agents need to find one of several niches: “They need to be specialists in a destination, or style, or travel, or type of clientele.” Mr Rowell’s newsletter is a combination of personal opinions and travel observations. He also offers money-saving and practical travel tips. A frequent advocate of travel agents in his newsletter, Mr Rowell thinks a key element for their future in the US is to raise educational and professional standards to higher levels found in other areas such as Europe. “Agents need to know this lack of standards is harming the whole industry at a time when the public is reevaluating their use,” he said. Report by David Wilkening
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