 |
Jennifer Halboth, Globus Family of Brands director of marketing // © Globus Family of Brands 2009 |
Recently, the Globus Family of Brands launched a new marketing and ad campaign (
www.agentlifesimplified.com) that stresses the importance of simplicity for busy travel agents. With the new campaign, improved and simplified means of communication and conveying information between Globus and its travel agents, the tour operator hopes to help make agents’ lives not only simpler but easier. TravelAge West recently spoke with Globus’ director of marketing, Jennifer Halboth, to find out more about Globus’ return to the basics of travel.
What prompted Globus to embark on this simplification campaign?
We started to dig in and really take stock of how much the world has changed, how much the world has changed for travel agents and really just how hectic things have become. We also began looking at our own pace of work over the last year navigating this very challenging economic environment, with everyone digging in and doing more with less and doing more for every client and we thought, “Hey if we feel this way, we have to imagine how travel agents feel.”
We realized that, at the end of the day, we are just one supplier. We are one of many tour suppliers, cruise suppliers and resort suppliers that are vying for the attention of these agents and a lot of times, even if the agent wants to open your e-mail, he or she simply doesn’t have time and so that’s really what it boils down to for us. So, we wanted to embark on a campaign that’s so much more than just an ad campaign.
For us, it’s a completely new communication platform. It really questions how we’re reaching out to an agent, what we are saying and how we are saying it. How quickly agents can digest it is very important, so these are all different kinds of parameters that we wanted to challenge ourselves with throughout this year and going forward because we need to help an agent do his or her job more quickly and better, to get the information they need and be able to turn it around and action it immediately.
The campaign talks about “getting back to basics.” What would Globus define as the “basics” of the travel industry?
For one, it’s sales driven. Even though travel is this wonderfully emotional thing, at the end of the day, these agents are trying to make a living and, as a supplier, we need to help them do that. So, even though I’m very proud of some of the marketing materials that we’ve done in the past, sometimes they can get a little long and if the agent can’t take it and action it then it doesn’t really help them. The other basic is to just ‘get to the point.’[Agents] are trying to take stock of so many suppliers and everything, but just telling them the one most important thing is best. So, really it’s getting down to what is the most strategic, what’s the best deal, what’s the newest product, whatever that one thing is and trying to focus in on that. I think narrowing it down to those things makes it easier to reach out, and makes it easier for them to digest what we are communicating to them.
How does Globus determine what that one important thing is?
Right now, our Avalon Waterways promotion has the best headline, it’s our best promotion right now so we would probably lead with that, and make sure we get that out there. Right now, Avalon Waterways is offering 50 percent off airfare for all 2010 European river cruises. It’s been a very successful promotion for us. River cruising is doing very well. Obviously, that’s another case of an industry category that is very top of mind with agents, travelers, and even consumer travel pubs so, leveraging that, helping more agents to come on board and learn about river cruising, is a priority for us as well.
Back in September, we were relaunching our Monograms brand, and so in September, if you were hearing from the Globus Family of Brands most likely you were hearing about Monograms.
We also do e-mails and print ads and our business development managers (BDMs) are talking to their agents one-on-one. You just have to trust the fact that communications are happening all the time and new communications are happening between our reservations staff and agents, but when you’re putting something out there from a high-level, you need to cut to the chase, give the best headline, give the best story and give the thing that the agent can action most.
Could you elaborate more on the concept of client triggers and agent hooks?
Obviously, tour companies need to look at themselves in relation to cruise companies. A lot of times, we’re vying for the same traveler and the same agent, and what we don’t have that the big ship cruise lines have is large consumer marketing dollars for broadcasting and brand recognition. Even though travelers who travel with us know our brands and have a very good experience with them, we are not a household name. But, while a client might very easily come in and say, “I want to take a Royal Caribbean cruise,” they may just say, “I’ve never been to X destination before.” We want to interject one of our brands into those conversations. The pattern is that our brand is secondary and the business opportunity is primary, so we are interjecting one of our brands as a solution to help an agent make a sale and earn a good commission because we pay great commissions on all our brands. It’s not so much about us trying to push our brand─ it’s about letting our brand be a solution for a business situation that is presented to an agent. For clients who do come in and say, “I want to take a tour,” we want to really leverage the fact that Globus is the most recommended tour operator. We’ve been around 80 plus years and agents really do love us. They tell us by voting for us in all different kinds of awards, we’ve had a very good record with the Travel Age West WAVE Awards, and we want to leverage that.
How can travel agents keep informed of all the new changes occurring at Globus?
The best way for agents in the know about what we have going on is to visit our travel agent portal at GlobusFamilyPartner.com. Again, in this day and age we like to strip down things that we are pushing out: the strong headlines and the bare essentials. So, we are going to push out the best headlines, the best offers, and the most strategic and newest stuff, but the travel agent portal is going to have everything that an agent needs: customizable marketing materials and all the current promotions. So, that’s really how we are using our marketing. We’re going to push out good strong hooks and good leads, but everything is going to be on the travel agent portal. The other good way is for agents to talk to their BDM; we have a very visible sales force, and we have 22 territories. They are out talking to agents; we have inside sales consultants talking to agents one-to-one, so at any given time reaching out to their Globus Family of Brand’s BDM is a great way to know what’s going on.
Would the travel agent portal be the best resource for the time-strapped agent?
We have actually been making updates to the travel agent portal because, at the end of the day, the portal is very different than a consumer site in the sense that when it’s a B2B application, some agents are very heavy users, and they use your site a lot. You can’t just go away and magically wake up the next morning and see that the travel agent portal is 100 percent different, so we’ve really been doing some usability with agents. We are asking them what they like, what they don’t like, where we can improve and we are going to be making some adjustments over the next couple of months for easier navigation and increased functionality. We are probably going to be doing some standing training in the first quarter where agents can, at various times throughout the month, hop on the training and learn how to navigate through the travel agent portal if they need it.
What is Globus doing to offer new and fresh experiences of popular tourism destinations that may have become a little oversaturated?
That’s what the Monograms brand is really about. What Monograms allows for is that complete customization on the agent’s side. We have also enhanced the Monogram’s optional offerings for this coming year. Within the booking flow or after the booking flow — however the agent prefers it — they can add on options for their clients to help craft a more personalized vacation based on their client’s interests and how they want to spend their time, and the agent earns five percent commission which is nice. But, while clients are on vacation, they have support in the local host, every logistical aspect is linked, connected and worry free. A lot of travelers are going to be really comfortable once they get to a destination because they are not worrying about getting around and within that destination, which frees them up to experience that destination the way they want, and we think that is really what Monograms helps delivers. There are going to be great niche operators out there that really hone in on certain special interests and they do such a great job. But on the mass level, what we can do best is make those destinations completely accessible.
www.globusfamilypartner.com
