TravelResearchOnline.com Blog

You can be a “thought leader” in your community.  The public has a keen interest in all things related to travel. If you seek them out, you are likely to find many opportunities to interact with hundreds, perhaps thousands of consumers in your community through an intelligent public relations campaign.
Publishers and editors of magazines, newspapers [...]

If you have now chosen the distribution channels and tactics you wish to use in 2010, it is time to begin to tie your Marketing Plan back into your overall business plan and budget. You want to make sure that your Marketing Plan is realistic with regard to your budgets and overall capabilities. You want [...]

Business plans are important. Organization is essential. Clarity of expression and correctly assessing markets: priceless. But not a one of these is worth anything without ACTION. Be sure to write an Action Plan (how and when) along with your Marketing Plan (what to do). Too many times we over-plan and over-perfect and in the process [...]

For the topic of social marketing, I am going to largely repeat my earlier article on the subject. My opinion has not deviated a great deal since I first looked at the potential of Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media as marketing channels for travel agents. Some agents report good results. Actually, only [...]

Is there any more confusing marketing decision than how to conceive, build and deploy a travel agency website?  What information should be included? What are clients expecting?  How to keep it updated?  Should it have a booking engine?  How much should the agency spend given the amount of business that the site generates?  How should [...]

In developing our 2010 Marketing Plan, we have established the need for regular communications with our existing clients as a way of maintaining our relationships and staying in contact. One of the best ways to stay in touch with clients is through a newsletter. Even if you do not own the company for which you [...]

Many travel agents have found that referral networks provide an excellent source of new clients. You can generate strong word of mouth marketing by establishing both formal and informal referral networks to generate recommendations for your travel planning practice.
Referral networks are individual business people in complementary industries who commit to refer business to each other. [...]

Well over a year ago, TRO identified having a niche component to your business plan as being one of the characteristics of top travel agents. We now want to focus on integrating niche marketing into our 2010 Marketing Plan.
The concept of niche marketing is often misunderstood. Niche marketing is a way of helping you focus [...]

Experienced travel agents seek out good group leaders. In its most common incarnation, a “pied piper” or group leader is provided with a free or “comp” travel opportunity as both incentive and as compensation for organizing and recruiting others to travel as a group. In some instances, however, the group leader acts as a focal [...]

An important component of building a successful travel practice is the network of people with whom you come into contact. Although your own circle of influence may be small, it grows exponentially because your friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances, teachers, and co-workers all have circles of influence into which you can market. These relationships provide opportunities to [...]