Tour sales and family travel present travel agents with the opportunity to increase revenues through specialization, according to tour company executives participating in the Tour Operator Panel at Travel Trade’s Leisure Travel Conference in Ft. Lauderdale.
The executives also noted that tours are a great way to keep clients traveling, especially to Europe, as the dollar drops against the euro because clients pay in dollars before they leave home, reported Travel Trade.
“We are all in a good position right now because the baby boomers are coming into our marketplace and we find multigenerational travel is a big thing,” said Brendan Worldwide Vacations president Gary Murphy. He added:
“Grandparents are subsidizing these multigenerational vacations and that is a niche agents should grab.”
Mr Murphy’s advice was echoed by the other panelists: Marc Kazlauskas, president of Insight Vacations; Joel Cohen, vice president of NY City Vacation Packages; Steve Perillo, president of Perillo Tours; Kieron Keady, VP, Qantas Vacations & Jetabout; and Brian Robb, senior VP, The Mark Travel Corporation.
To Murphy’s comment, Cohen added that New York City “has become a huge family destination” – with a sizeable multigenerational business.
Agents, he said, should jump on this trend because New York City is a “high repeat-travel destination where people tend to come back a few times a year.”
Mr Keady noted that multigenerational travel can mean big bucks for agents – Qantas Vacations recently received a $290,000 booking from a Home Based agent who was putting together a trip for a multigenerational family.
Report by David Wilkening
