I fancy myself as a newshound. I some sort of innate need to be up to speed on all sorts of news—travel news, local news, international news, and even weird news! I have Google Alerts set up to keep me up to speed and I absolutely love Twitter that can deliver my news in short, 140 character (or less) bytes. I find that by keeping abreast of the various “worlds” that make up my life, I am keeping myself open to new opportunities that may come along. Just last week I found another one! But, to my dismay, I was late to the game.
An alert popped up on a new niche type travel business—inheritance travel. You can read all the details here; but in a nutshell, the concept involves people wither willing or placing the gift of travel into a trust for some future generation. What a brilliant idea!
They say that we are in the process of the largest exchange of wealth ever as the boomers pass their assets to their Gen X offspring. We already know that today’s traveler, unlike their predecessor, is more in tuned with experiential and immersive travel. We also know that they are willing to pay for the experiences they crave. So, setting up a trust fund specifically to fund travel makes all the sense in the world. If you think about our current economic crisis (and it is still current despite some slight improvement). How much better could our businesses have survived this recession/depression if there was a stable of clients with a pre-funded travel account? We would not need to be recommending drive vacations and condo rentals for which we might or might not be paid a commission. Instead, we could be talking about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or taking an extended tour of all of the European Opera Houses!
As I read the article, my mind was racing. Why not set up a partnership with a few local attorneys or financial planners. We could treat them as independent consultants. It would be a win-win all around. They would now have access to a new and different method of planning for the future to offer their clients. We would have access to additional clients who are likely to have the means to travel luxuriously.
While the concept currently does not work for me and my business, I wanted to share it with others (this industry is great that way, isn’t it?) and went to the TRO Community to create a post! Within an hour, someone told me that another community member had beaten me to the punch and already posted it. Great minds think alike. And shortly after my post, was another one. It made me smile!
Very few industries are as collaborative as ours and to see nearly 9,000 agents working together in one community was very heartening to see. Seeing three separate agents thinking “outside the box” for a way to improve their business was exciting. And seeing those same agents keeping their ear to the ground for news that is not your typical industry type news, was encouraging. Our demise has been predicted for decades, and with this type of thinking and collaboration, this industry is poised to deny the naysayers once again!
One thought on “New opportunities for a proud industry”
John,
Brilliant opportunity, both for future business, but also with the people that might be interested in setting this type of trust up. Just the opposite of what I used to say at the end of my weekly Miami radio show for eight years…”Give us a call so we can help you plan your dream trip…if you don’t spend it, your heirs will!”