Like I said it was the hardest decision I made in my business probably but also the most liberating and, in the end, the most profitable.

But you’re right, you do have to turn (some) clientele away but in the long run you will gain much more (and better targeted) clients in the future. I have also increased my range of audience from a pretty local one to an international one by specialising in just one part of travel, family travel.

Your mum needs to first work out what specialty or market she would most like to work in – or in fact which part of the market she currently services mostly now anyway and then go for it.

Specialising in something has several really important business advantages:

* you can become much more focussed in your own knowledge of a particular market and the properties, tours, and flights that suit that one market
* you establish yourself as THE expert in that particular market
* you dont waste precious time with tyre-kickers and those who want the cheapest fare to somewhere and you will never see or hear from them again
* you build a much stronger, much more loyal customer base because they know you are the expert in the type of travel they want
* your loyal customers will become a referral machine for your business giving you the type of quality recommendation that money cant buy: word of mouth

I understand that your mum might be reticent to jump in and start cutting her client base but believe me, in 6 to 12 months time she will be very glad she did.

Good luck mate,
Nick

I couldn’t agree more with you mate. Specialising has to be the key to longevity – whether travel consultants are going to be offline or online.

It was the hardest business decision I have made to narrow my focus to only selling travel to families. The first few times I actually knocked back work that wasn’t in the family demographic was horrible. But I am so glad I did.

Rather than trying to be everything to everyone – and failing – now I just have to know the family market, the customers, the destinations and the appropriate properties and tours.

The other bonus was as soon as I did this (specialising) my businesses took off.

As it’s not feasible nor practical to have a destination expert for every backwater worldwide in retail outlets, as per the example of Nick above, agents need to bite the bullet, reduce their footprint and specialise — pronto.

In specialising they’re going to lose the walk-in traffic who are looking for a package to Phuket rather than a hippo safari for gappers in Uganda, but they should dispense with the shopfront altogether, reduce their staff, work from home and reinvent themselves as the expert, worldwide for hippo gapper safaris. Shutting the retail outlet and going online to market worldwide for a tight niche is the only way a small business can scale this.

So who’s going to look after the walk-in traffic that do want a package somewhere warm and really don’t care about anything but the price? The web.

-They have no time or budget to reach out to new clients.
-There is little attempt made to get feedback after a client’s holiday.
-Through surveys I’ve found that many potential clients hold misconceptions, like assuming an agency will always cost more.
-And it’s not just communication with clients. Agents tell me that the most frustrating part of the job can be dealing with vendor reps. “Can my clients bring alcohol aboard the ship?” An agent can ask 3 times, speak to 3 different people, and hear “yes”, “no”, and “Only a certain amount.”

I’m looking for solutions to these problems, and social marketing seems to offer a lot of possibilities. To me, the biggest opportunity is to engage the right clients.

There is a strong sense of independence in the internet generation. Not only can they book things themselves, organized tour packages often don’t appeal to them. If they do go through an agent just for airfare, the profit margins are razor thin, and booking fees barely make it worthwhile. I have to ask if it’s even worth it to grab these customers back from OTAs when there are more lucrative demographics out there. If your agency profits most off of tour/cruise packages (like my mom’s), cater to those who want them. But who are they, and how do you connect with them?

The agency does have a Facebook fanpage with over 200 fans, where they post specials and encourage people to submit pictures of their travels. It’s a good start. But I’m concerned that they still aren’t reaching the right people. According to my mom, honeymooners and the retired are the most lucrative clients because they typically enjoy vacations with some organization (packages). I’m not sure how to reach this potential clientele, as honeymoons are one-time events and older generations have progressively less computer literacy.

The agency is keeping up with Facebook, google wave can give birth to a more collaborative booking process, and twitter could definitely be explored. But I’m kind of at a loss as to how we could best utilize these social services, given the clientele that keeps the agency in the black. Any suggestions?