Courtesy of Open Jaw and Sean Kapitain

Courtesy of Open Jaw and Sean Kapitain

In reality, however, the Pareto Principle does not apply to every situation, especially those engineered to work otherwise. The Pareto principle is not an immutable law of nature, it’s all about averages. You didn’t get into the business of being a travel professional to be average. You want to be insanely great at what you do. Your travel practice can rise above the 80% mark nationwide. Your clients call all be more productive for you. You can be more efficient. You can take your travel practice to ever higher levels. You are not limited by some artificial notion of “the average.”

This 365 Marketing and Sales Tip is provided free to the travel agent community by:

Let’s do some engineering.

• Focus on the marketing that has historically paid off for you. Do what you do best in your local community and then resolve to add a new technique that has a high probability of return. The time you are spending in other, less productive marketing efforts? Re-invest it in the types of marketing that demonstrates a return.
• Drop the clients who don’t add to your business and who are constantly eating at your time with hopeless research requests. Re-invest the time you recover into your productive clients and your marketing techniques.
• Work your remaining clients. Educate them, be in touch with them, train them. Become their life-long partner in achieving travel ambitions.
• Examine all of your points of contact, every one of them. Take all of them to the next level, begin to sharpen your image and never stop.
• Stop with the busywork that basically adds very little to your day – the surfing, the non-productive email reading, the shuffling of papers. During the most productive parts of your day, work your best game and leave everything else behind. Reinvest the time you recover in quality time with the people around you. Make sure to remember that you are one of the people around you.

It’s one thing to work hard. Some of the hardest working people I have ever known have very difficult lives and don’t enjoy themselves very much. Instead, take a few moments to set your priorities and resolve to work smart. Get the trends moving in your direction. Form relationships that work for you.

And if you can’t break the Pareto Principle, perhaps you can bend it just a little in your favor. That may be all you need to have a bit more fun with your chosen profession.

On board Celebrity Solstice this week, I put the question to Jacques Van Staden, vice president of culinary operations.

“It’s a vicious rumor,” Van Staden told me during an interview in Silk Harvest, where the cover charge for dinner is $25 per person. “The specialty restaurants weren’t designed to drive up revenue. What people don’t realize is that the service charge goes 100 percent to our staff. That’s their gratuities.”

The notion of downgrading the quality of food runs contrary to Celebrity’s corporate philosophy, Van Staden’s says. From President and CEO Dan Hanrahan on down the chain, the mandate is that any action taken on Celebrity’s behalf cannot adversely affect the guest experience. Sure, Celebrity seeks cost-savings like any company, but those cost-savings typically come from achieving greater efficiencies, not cutting back on quality.

Jacques Van Staden, vice president of culinary operations for Celebrity Cruises, says that the cornerstone of the Celebrity brand is the dining experience. ‘That is really what we are about: the food, the wine and the service. That’s why it’s so frustrating when people think we are downgrading the experience. We just don’t. It is quite the contrary. We do dining focus groups just to figure out how we can better serve our guests. We’re always asking, How do we deliver an experience that guests will treasure and that they will remember?’

“We are never allowed to cut back on the product,” Van Staden says. “I could literally pick up the phone and say cut all the steaks from six ounces to four ounces, and we could save, hypothetically, $15 million annually. But it doesn’t work like that. We work harder to find efficiencies so that we can save money and take that money and reinvest it in a better product.”

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One noticeable example is a new program to procure seafood. Celebrity recently switched from procuring frozen fish to procuring “frozen at sea fish,” where the catch is frozen within 15 minutes after being caught. “Obviously it comes with a higher premium,” Van Staden says, “but it’s a better quality fish.”

Continually Improving

On my sailing, the specialty restaurants were booked to capacity by guests who desired an intimate dining experience outside the main dining room.

Some of the specialty restaurants offer opportunities to experience dining that would cost much more on land. Murano, for example, offers a near Michelin-star dining experience (to my knowledge, Michelin does not distribute stars to cruise ship restaurants) for $35 per person, allowing guests to enjoy an exquisite dining event in a beautiful setting.

While guests appreciate specialty restaurants, Van Staden says that cruise lines are not often rated by their specialty restaurants. “It’s about what the main restaurant and lido deliver,” he says. “Those are our two main focuses. We revamped our buffet experience. We increased the variety. We changed the menus. For the main restaurant, we invest a lot of money and a lot of time to continuously improve it. Our goal is to separate ourselves from the sea of sameness from the main restaurants on other cruise lines.”

Iron Chef Cat Cora performs a cooking demonstration during Celebrity Cruises’ first Food Network cruise. More than 150 people signed on to attend hands-on workshops and demonstrations and meet the celebrity chefs. All who I spoke with had high praise for Celebrity’s cuisine, in the main dining room and beyond.

Many guests never venture beyond the main dining room or the Oceanview (lido) Café. My own impression of these two dining venues during my sailing: the cuisine, presentation and execution is excellent. I can’t imagine anyone being disappointment in either restaurant, and I am traveling with 150 foodies who are participating in Celebrity’s first Food Network cruise. None have expressed disappointment. To the contrary, all who I have spoke with have expressed praise.

So put those rumors to rest: There’s no truth to them, and in fact, the truth appears to be quite the opposite. Celebrity is raising the bar in the main dining room instead of lowering it.

Visit Ralph’s web site, www.avidcruiser.com, to contact him and for additional articles about cruising.

In every profession there are people who operate at the highest levels, who squeeze every drop of potential from their work, and who earn terrific incomes while doing so. Travel consulting is no exception. I personally know several travel consultants making 6+ figure incomes. Granted, they are the in the minority, but that is actually the point. It is possible. It can be done. It is highly likely you can do it as well.

If the first thought that comes to your mind begins with the word “But“…congratulations! Whatever follows that word is a limiting thought and you now know what must be banished. What is stopping you? If others are doing it, then why aren’t you?

The agents who make really high incomes don’t do it overnight. They spend time learning their trade, working with clients, making mistakes. But most importantly, they take the science and art of sales, marketing and customer service very, very, seriously. They listen to experts like Nolan Burris, Mike Marchev, Stuart Cohen and Scott Koepf and then they actually do the things those experts say to do.

Too often, there is a gap between theory and actual performance. There are methods, strategies and tactics that work. But if you omit a step, if you do it out of order, failure results. Make a study, a science, an art, out of your business practices. Fine tune them until you get it right. For example, introducing a fee into your travel practice is not as simple as just handing a rate-card to each client you meet. I know of an agent who essentially did just that. A posted rate card, without introduction, without finesse simply scared off clients. Listen to Nolan Burris’s recommendations for HOW to introduce a fee into your practice: PROVE your worth first, THEN introduce the fee, but BEFORE you do any work. The method is important! Simply jumping to the final result you want without a plan is doomed to failure, and you start to believe the limitation myth.

There is a tremendous difference between working hard and working smart. If you are trapped in a low salary position in an agency, then ask to be placed on some type of performance (commission) basis if you have decided to go for it. If you are already on a commission basis, you are on the right track. I want each of you to have from your travel business exactly what you want from it. If some portion of your aspiration is a high income, it is very likely that you can have it. A good start is to attend tomorrow’s seminar on No Limits Marketing with Mike Marchev. You can register by clicking here.

For good or bad, our communication habits have transformed as rapidly as technology has enabled them. Now, the norm is to not only have a phone, but a web enabled personal media device. What??

Consequently we aren’t using these “phones’ to talk at all; but rather to surf, pull or push data, and to text. Communication experts predict that 2010 will be the year when over 50 % of web access is via PDA rather than desktop PCs or laptops.

If you haven’t noticed, there truly is a media revolution underway. And what alarms me, is that very few people are making the transference from their personal life and habits to their business. The adoption of Social Media (SM) into the business strategy of travel & tourism firms spans both ends of the spectrum from zealots to Neanderthals. Some companies, notably Southwest and JetBlue have done an incredible job to embrace and engage customers via SM.

Here is a startling fact. Today, there are more than 500 million Facebook users. Half a billion! And they are still growing! And it’s banned in China!

Our clients have likely established their SM strategy; be it personal or business. Isn’t it about time that we all do the same? And what’s the first step? Many companies over think their strategic options and fool themselves saying, ”we will only do these things in this particular medium.”

Why don’t you go find your customers, and see where they are? Find out what they are doing? Doesn’t that seem like a better place to start?

Dan Hanrahan, CEO of Celebrity Cruises, recently chided agents for poor follow-up with passengers who have just returned from a cruise. I agree with Dan; agents can do so much more when it comes to client communication. I have been in this industry for over three decades and I am saddened by how infrequently my family, my friends, and neighbors are solicited by any travel agents. I know they want to travel. I know they want our business. Why are travel professionals not reaching out to their potential customers?

Advertising is expensive. Even local print, radio or direct mail can tax the budget of small and large businesses alike. But technology has changed that. The playing field is now level. But a level playing field is no good unless you are in the game! You’ve got to play!

Social media is an inexpensive (mostly free) way to stay in touch with present clients and build your base.

On Twitter, for example, subjects or topics can be marked via something called a hashtag which is indicated by the pound symbol (#). These are use by authors to allow people to follow the topics of interest to them. On the Twitter home page you can enter #airlines, #fashion, #hotels, #wine, #honeymoons, #cruises and many more in the search box, an quickly find Tweets on that topic. You can even create your own tags. Like to see what Peter Greenberg, or Samantha Brown is up to? Want to get firsthand travel news from the Times of both London & New York? Try the #travel hashtag and you will see a never ending stream of travel related Tweets.

Travel bugs have formed groups by following others who specialize in #travel. On Mondays there’s a special event called #MexMonday when tweets about Mexico are encouraged and rewarded. Do you think that might be something to check out if you regularly sell vacations to Mexico? Faithful participants in the #travel world are the major destinations in Mexico such as Los Cabos and Cancun.

On Tuesday the travel tweeps (people) recommend other tweeps to follow. That’s called #TravelTuesday.  This is a good way to build your following.

Some travel agents now have thousands of followers. Suppliers have hundreds of thousands. @United has 100,000 while @JetBlue has 1,600,000 followers. And don’t think they are not marketing to these followers. They have twitter only sales (Twares = Twitter only fares) which offer drastic reductions for a very limited time. Get in the game!

So how do you get started? Go to www.twitter.com and create an account. Then explore. I found some journalists and industry leaders whom I respect. I looked at who they were following and who follows them. Great place to start. Once on, learn a few things about the manners and decorum of Twitter. Having only commercial messages will get you no audience.

Like kindergarten you should be polite, say thanks by re-tweeting (RT) and share interesting information. Kate McCulley from Boston has written a great primer on Twitter Travel and you should read it http://bit.ly/cOsrbc on her blog.

Social media is about travel; it’s a gateway to exploring a new world of communication and who knows where it will lead? More customers? More friends? More reasons to not just “put down that phone and look at me!”

I hope to follow you on Twitter. You can follow me at @WldTravlBill.

Bill is a veteran of over 30 years in the travel & tourism business. He has worked on both the supplier and agency sides. Most recently he served for over a decade as the CEO of ASTA. He is currently associated as a Senior Consultant to Partner Concepts, an Annapolis based marketing company serving Fortune 500 companies and many National Tourism Organizations (NTO). He lives in Alexandria, VA., where he also manages WAM Strategic Development. You can find him on Twitter @WldTrvlBill

John T. Peters joined Tripology as President and CEO in June of 2008. Most recently, John navigated the company into a purchase by Rand McNally and is now the VP/GM Digital Strategy & Travel. Prior to Tripology, John was Vice President of Business Development & Travel Trade where he led the successful launch of Endless Vacation Rentals by Wyndham Worldwide. Earlier in his career, John founded Zeus Tours & Yacht Cruises, an international yacht cruise/tour and hotel business that grew to over $50 million in sales with over 100 employees in offices in New York, Athens, Rome and Buenos Aires.

John’s last interview left a few issues still to be discussed. This follow-up delves into those agents who have questions about making Tripology work consistently for them.

TRO: Let’s veer over to the Rand McNally side of things just for a moment.  How did Tripology fit into their portfolio?

JP:  Rand McNally has been around for over 150 years and has a brand that everyone over 40 recognizes.  Since the beginning, travelers have consulted Rand McNally for information including the maps and directions products that made them famous, as well as information on destinations, road trips and more.  Rand McNally is in many businesses and earlier this year they decided they want to expand their travel offerings.  They did not want to become yet another booking engine, but wanted to keep in their theme of providing travel information to consumers planning a trip.  Tripology is just that; we connect online consumers, frustrated with online booking engines, an alternative – travel agents.  In my opinion, travel specialists are the best option for anyone planning any kind of non-commodity travel. 

TRO: John, tell us about the role that the newly launched Rand McNally site is playing vis-a-vis Tripology.

JP:  Where do I start?  One thing that all travel companies struggle with online is getting traffic to their site.  Rand McNally has over one million people a month come to www.RandMcNally.com.  We just re-launched the site and I’m so proud to see Tripology integrated on almost every page.  When a consumer comes to RandMcNally.com to gather information on destinations (including the exclusive video travel guides on things like where to eat, what to do and what not to miss), consumers will have the very visible option of using Tripology to connect with a travel specialist.  The new RandMcNally.com is already giving us 15% of our traffic – and that’s just the first week after launch.  Needless to say, I’m thrilled to see our logo all over the Rand McNally site.

TRO: Tripology recently hit an important milestone in its growth.  Do you want to tell us about that?

JP:  Actually, we hit a few.  First, we recently processed our 150,000th trip request.  So that means 150,000 high-intent, online travelers decided they would rather work with an offline Tripologist (what we call our registered travel specialists.)  It is important to note that not everyone completes a trip request online; the form is made to cater only to serious travelers. Second, we just registered our 15,000th travel specialist.  Again, we’re selective about who we approve so we’re very proud to have so many people using us.  Finally, we’re just celebrating our third anniversary; in three years we went from a tiny startup to being owned by a 150+ year old company.  I can’t tell you how proud we are of these milestones.

TRO: What are some of the biggest advantages to being part of Rand McNally? 

JP:  Again, where do I start?  Clearly, the biggest advantage has to be financial security. Rand McNally is owned by Patriarch Partners, a private equity company with a portfolio of over 70 companies and over $7 billion of assets under management.  As a startup, we were funded by a reputable venture capital firm, but not anything like this.  There isn’t any other online travel lead company that can match this type of financial backing.  Another advantage is the brand; almost everyone knows and trusts Rand McNally.  As a startup, we’d spend the first 15 minutes of every meeting trying to gain the trust of those with whom we were meeting.  Now I just say “Rand McNally” and there’s instant recognition and trust.

TRO: Can you give us a profile of the typical agent or agency participating with you?  What is the size of the agency and do you see an advantage for one type of agency over another?

JP:  I can average out all our stats, but that won’t end up meaning anything to answer this question.  I can tell you half of our Tripologists are home-based and half are brick and mortar.  They both perform equally as well so being home-based vs. brick and mortar doesn’t play into success with Tripology.  I will however, tell you what the four most important attributes impact success; first-hand knowledge, specialization, timeliness and diligence.  Here’s what I mean: 

1) First-hand knowledge: Consumers want to know that you “walk the walk”, i.e. you have been to the destination and have local contacts;

2) Specialization:  Online consumers don’t want generalists, they want specialists.  Generic, mundane travel information is all over the place on the web.  They don’t want that from you. They want to know you specialize in the exact trip they’re looking to take;

3) Timeliness: Online consumers want fast responses.  This doesn’t mean they want all the answers quickly, but they do want to hear from you. If you tell them, I’ll call you in an hour but you call them in three hours, you’ve over-promised and under-delivered. Then they start thinking “If this is how it is even before I’ve made a booking, what’s going to happen after I give this person my credit card?”  The key is to under-promise and over-deliver – every time;

4) Diligence: Follow up is key.  Don’t think because you’ve paid for a lead that you need to try any less.  Tripology takes work. Just like for a walk-in customer or referral, organized, planned follow up is key. We hear all the time how successful Tripologists are managing to close business from our leads and the number one reason cited is diligence.

TRO: And there is now a consumer iPhone app?

JP:  Actually, there is one, soon to be two (shhhh).  First, Tripology has an iPhone ® app right now which enables consumers to put through a Trip Request to Tripology.  Visit www.tripology.com/socialmedia for all the details.  In addition, we’re launching a Rand McNally app which incorporates the Tripology trip request form in the app.  This will be announced and available in a couple of weeks.

TRO: On travel agency forums, I’ve seen agents a few agents saying they just can’t make Tripology work.  How do you respond to those people?

JP:  I read all the forums, so I’ve seen the posts.  If you know me, you also know that I post responses on those forums as well.  Some suppliers have mentioned to me that I shouldn’t bother reading them, but I believe people who complain are doing me a favor (I do wish they’d come to me directly, instead of posting often erroneous information on forums, but okay.)  The answer is easy; if you’ve tried 5 leads, you’ve haven’t tried enough.  Tripology takes some getting used to; about 12 leads on average before you get your FIRST booking (though many agents are elated when they buy the first lead and get a booking right away.)  As you work through more and more leads and begin to understand the nuances, you’ll learn more about what leads you should buy and you’ll get better close ratios.  If you have tried, say 15 leads or more and you didn’t get a booking, STOP.  We’ll take a look at your profile with you, make some suggestions, evaluate your emails and give you advice based on feedback from our most successful Tripologists.  Again, Tripology is a tool that requires work.  If you buy a lead on Monday, reach out to the customer on Monday! Don’t wait until Thursday to respond or you are just wasting your money.  Also, don’t send an email that says “Hi, I’m Fred. Call me!” and expect the consumer to think “Wow, this Fred guy sounds great.  I should call him.”  We have plenty of documentation and online videos to help you learn more about how to use Tripology, including tips on how to respond to potential customers.

TRO: Tell us about how agents can get free leads from Tripology.

JP:  I’m glad you asked.  What you are referring to (and what has our Tripologists so excited) is our Travel Industry Supporter Program.  Over 35 world-class suppliers like Classic Vacations, GOGO Worldwide Vacations, Pleasant Holidays, Globus and Tauck have signed up and have committed to reimbursing Tripologists for the cost of their leads if bookings are secured with them.  Many Tripologists are enjoying the program immensely because it has allowed them to increase their investment budget without cost.  The suppliers have seen incremental business from the program, so I think this is a win-win scenario all the way around.

TRO: What do you consider to be one of your most valuable tools for agents?

JP:  Our complimentary profile review is, without question, critical to the success of Tripologists.  Thankfully, more and more Tripologists are taking us up on this offer.  Our team of Relationship Manager schedules one-on-one calls which typically take only 5-10 minutes.  In that time, our staff will walk the agents through their Tripology profile, make recommendations on the things consumers see, suggest filter settings (to increase or decrease the flow of leads to their accounts) and offer tips about the program we’ve gathered from successful agents.  In most cases, agents will see their success ratios drastically improve after just a few minutes on the phone with one of our pros.

TRO: What’s new on the horizon at Tripology?

JP:  This one is easy; a lot!  We’re just about to announce a series of program enhancements starting with those being implemented in the first week of September.  These mainly deal with our Travel Industry Supporter Program (where agents can get FREE Tripology leads from suppliers) as well as a new testimonial tool (making it easier for agents to communicate with their customers to improve their profile page on Tripology.)

In addition to program enhancements, there are many additional technology enhancements scheduled for Q4 2010, starting in September.  These will be rolled out in two week increments over the next few months.  I won’t go into it here because we like to only share these things with our Tripologists, but I can tell you we’re focused on two areas;  driving consumer traffic to the site and a whole new set of agent tools.

I understand that it often feels this way. We hear all of the success stories from other agents, and we listen to the advice proffered by marketing and customer service experts. Yet, the people we encounter as clients don’t seem to follow the script. Everyone else’s clients might cooperate with fees and insurance and be loyal as a cocker spaniel, but not my clients.

This is going to be a bit difficult to say, even tougher to hear, but let me break it to you gently. The problem is probably not your clients.

Implementing a fee into your practice, generating loyalty, explaining value – none of these things are necessarily simple. There are proven techniques involved, ways of introducing these new concepts into your travel practice that time and experience have proven capable and worthy of imitation. Too many agents, however, skip the technique part of the lesson and try to move right to the end result. Rebuffed by their client, the admonished travel agent decides it’s her clients who are different.

Once you begin saying that it’s your clients’ fault, you lose a tremendous opportunity to take your travel practice to a higher level, to operate above the fray. It can be done. Your clients are not different. You just have to learn the proper way to train your clients.

Attend some training courses. Listen carefully to the instructors. Read the articles in this column. If you hit a bump, ask questions in the TRO travel agency community. But don’t give up.

By the way, IF the problem is really, truly your clients, here’s what you do: get some new clients.

I feel my business has been stagnating for a while and I’ve decided to take a new direction. How many years can you keep doing the same thing with approximately the same bottom line? Being a one woman show and wearing many hats, it leaves little time to think about the next step. I recently spoke  John Peters of Tripology about how to grow my business and which direction to take. He had some very good ideas for me. Because there are only so many hours in the day, I feel as though I can’t possibly take on any more business, therefore I’m not able to make more sales or commission. I would like to take on more independent agents who have a following, as well as the drive and passion for this business.

I implemented a new website about a year and a half ago. I really like the site and have received great feedback on it. However, can it be found? Probably not too easily. I have no search engine optimization in place. And if I am to compete in this market, SEO is key. I’ve decided to put this at the forefront of my list of things to do to grow the business. I’ve contacted a number of site designers and SEO companies to find the right fit for my small company. An SEO company would be key in establishing The Tropical Travelers as a key player in the online vacation company field. I also feel that my website is in need of more content, as well as more frequent updating to stay current with industry trends.

My next focus will be establishing a blog for my business. I am not sure where I will find the time, but I have seen the results (increased business) from other travel professionals. And believe me, new business is a big motivator! Clearly blogging about the industry and travel will attract visitors and give me the opportunity to “show them my stuff.” Clearly, this is something for which I need to make time.

I’ve also been asked to be a participant on a panel at a large travel show. Now, I’m no public speaker. I shun anything to do with public speaking. However, this could be a great opportunity for me and my company. I’m willing to give most anything a try, so why not?

I’ll be interested to see which of these projects works for my company and how I can grow my business in other ways. This time next year I hope to have my blog up and running with at least two entries per week. Also, I’m considering a booking engine for my site. I do prefer to have personal contact with each client, but I would be interested to see if this increases overall gross sales. I also am hoping to increase site traffic by 30% within the first 6 months. With a 40% increase in sales over the first year.

Have you enlisted an SEO company? Are you blogging? What are you thinking about for next year?

Jennifer Byrne is the owner of The Tropical Travelers (www.thetropicaltravelers.com) in Malvern, PA. For more information, you can contact Jennifer at jennifer@thetropicaltravelers.com.

Comments to this article are welcomed and encouraged, please utilize the comment form below so we can all learn and interact with each other!

My father once told me “Never play the other man’s game.” Everyone builds around their inherent specialties and strengths. If you try to compete with the OTAs playing by their rules and imitating their tactics, you will quickly find yourself out-matched. So don’t do that. Instead, compete with the online travel agencies using your own set of tactics geared to and fueled by your own strengths.

Take the time today to go to Travelocity and look at the site with a critical, professional eye. By their very nature, OTAs specialize in price. Practically every message on the Travelocity site is dedicated to a pricing issue. In order to do so, the online giants must deal in commodity travel. For the client that is absolutely sure of what they want, Travelocity has an answer.

The high volume, low margin strength of the OTA however, is also its weakness. The fact is, most clients do not know exactly what they want. They have questions and special circumstances and needs. They don’t want exactly what Travelocity offers, or they don’t know the value of one hotel over another. That is your strength. Don’t compete on price, compete on accessibility, compete on customization, compete on attention to individual needs and detail. That’s where Travelocity cannot compete with you.

What about pricing? Even in that instance, many travel consultants use tour operators that provide price matching or find that the prices offered are so limited as to not pertain to the client’s needs. However, as we discussed last week, price is not value. When you can properly relate your value to a client, the online travel agencies will be worrying about competing with you.

Back in 1990, it was still a sleepy island pretty much reserved for locals and the few private beach parties thrown by mainland resorts and reached by small boat. Today, there is scheduled ferry service from Punta Sam. The ferry leaves at 8am, 11am, 2:45pm, 5:30pm and 8:15pm.

Isla Mujeres has much to offer visitors looking to explore the water life, pristine beaches and awesome sunsets. Jet skis, kayaks and snorkel/dive gear are all easily rented. Most of the beauty of Isla Mujeres is found just offshore where there are colorful fish and coral reefs. For a little more action, sailing, fishing and even swimming with dolphins or sharks is available.

There are three major beaches on Isla Mujeres.

The Playa Caribbean has a bar restaurant and beach club. It is within walking distance from the downtown and shopping areas. Golf cart rentals (a fun way to explore this island) and snorkeling tours are both available her. However, expect some crowds as this is the most popular beach on Isla Mujeres and can get a bit rowdy with flocks of tourists “sampling” all the local cerveza.

The Playa Lanceros beach is where you can swim with the cat sharks and enjoy local, freshly caught seafood such as ceviche and tikin-shik fish. This is a locals beach and is a perfect spot for people watching and getting some insight into the local people. This beach is located in the south area of the island.

On Puta Sur, is Garrafon Park on the Isla Mujeres southernmost tip. This area has beautiful reefs and magnificent cliffs and is a photographer’s paradise. This is the home to an ancient Mayan temple and is also the highest point of land in the entire Yucatan peninsula. From this beach you can view the Caribbean and Cancun.

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But after all that exploration, no doubt you will be in the mood for some food or shopping. Or maybe eating and shopping is in lieu of the exploration. Regardless, Isla Mujeres will not disappoint with a plethora of quaint restaurants and small unique boutiques. While the downtown is not large, there are several shops and restaurants along and around Hidalgo between Morelos and Abasolo. Music is huge on Isla Mujeres and will fill the streets as you stroll downtown and explore all the shops and restaurants that line the street.  After consulting with several foodie sites, the consensus is that any of these six restaurants will satiate your culinary itch. Any local can give you directions!

Kokonuts Cafe and Bar. This is a traditional disco bar complete with a pool table, beer and cocktails and a favorite hangout for the locals.

Slices is also a disco and is great for those who like to dance and live the nightlife. They have an open bar (which can be dangerous) for $12 and $8 for guys and girls respectively.

Los Portales is the place for authentic Mexican cuisine with a hint of Caribbean flavor. Their specialties include lobster, grilled steak, tacos and paella.

Lorena is owned by (appropriately enough) Lorena and she handles the cooking herself. She serves fresh fish, live lobster, giant shrimp, and more. Every day, she dreams up a “special of the day”—it is always a surprise and always good!

Las Cazuelas serves Mexican and International cuisine. While the food is very good, it is not anything unique; but the view is! This restaurant  has a prime piece of Isla Mujeres real estate and overlooks the Caribbean Sea. Depending on the time of year, you might be able to catch a sunrise as it opens at 7am.

French Bistro Francais seems a bit of an anomaly in Mexcico. But if you have a sweet tooth and a craving for some European cooking, you will not go wrong here.  Specialties include French food (obviously) and homemade desserts.

Isla Mujeres has come a long way in 20 years. While some may miss the remoteness and isolation, what has replaces it is very enticing! Spend a day on the island and see for yourself!

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