Marketing Social Consciousness – Behavior | Travel Research Online

Travel is inherently uncomfortable. No matter in what class you ride or how luxurious your accommodations, travel takes you out of the familiar and requires you to expose yourself to others’ schedules, environments and rules.  A traveler must adapt, integrate and deflect and doing so is the very essence of the travel experience.

Or not.

Few of us have failed to witness the bad traveler. The person who gets angry at the slightest inconvenience, the man who decides to win an argument with the flight attendant by cursing or the screamer at the check-in desk. Throw a few drinks down a tired traveler and the mix is often most unfortunate.

There is little a travel consultant can do to overcome the many years some clients spend practicing bad behavior. After all, are you your clients’ keeper?

Perhaps not.  But then again… What’s the harm?

For each of your clients, try to anticipate the many things that are a normal part of the travel experience and walk through them with the traveler. Explain the likely inconveniences, the surprises that await, the common mishaps that all travelers experience. Anticipate for the client the possibility, even the likelihood that not everything on their trip will be picture perfect. Then, explain how to properly react, how to complain, how to resolve travel conflict.

A prime example is check-in times. Many travelers arrive at their destination well ahead of the time when a room might be available. As an agent, explain the situation that might occur and then offer alternatives…hit the beach…go shopping…have breakfast. By anticipating and explaining the situation, the client expects it and is not shocked by a normal circumstance.

One less thing to go wrong. One fewer ugly scene. Your client will be more relaxed, some desk clerk happier and the world a micro-sliver better off.