Tourism Vancouver Island has been looking for ways to limit the office’s environmental impact. One of the main ways we have achived this is by implementing mixed recycling pick-up. At our previous office location, we had paper recycling in place, but we noticed that there were alot of recyclable materials that were going into the trash because of our lack of recycling facilities.

With a weekly pick-up of items ranging from tin cans, plastic containers, plastic grocery bag and newspapers, we are seeing a dramatic decrease in the amount of material in our trashcans.

Taking action with baby steps, such as recycling and composting, can produce dramatic results in limiting your company’s carbon footprint. Even when you think the end result will be insignificant, or that your company won’t have that big of an impact, think again. No change is too small to go unnoticed by Mother Earth.

Tags: General, Tourism

How do you make cash out of a ”virtual tourist”? You turn them into real ones. There is a wide range of free, hands-on tools you can use to visualize how an experience at your place would be long before your potential guest has actually thought of travelling somewhere. Long gone are the times when you had to produce expensive colour brochures for distribution by stoneage mail.

Getting new tourists to a destination is a question about bringing people from being more or less unaware of your existence to a true confidence in that your place is the best place to visit. Just a few years ago, you had to make a strategic marketing decision if you should briefly display your trademark to the mass market or penetrate certain target groups with in-depth information about your business. Today, you can kill two birds with one stone.

Google Earth
It´s estimated that about 400 million people use Google Earth - virtual flights to anywhere in the world. Or even space! Tempt them by adding your tours, place or destination. Don´t forget Google Earth Outreach.

Skype
IP-telecommunication invented by a Swede, Niklas Zennström, and Janus Friis. Let your clients call you for free from any internet-connected computer in the world! Skype-to-Skype video and voice calls are always free. You can also have free group chats and conference calls with up to 25 people on Skype. Excellent for sales support or just to keep in touch with your distributors worldwide.

Blog
Oh-my-God, is anyone still counting how many blogs there are? Technorati alone states they are tracking over 112 million blogs, a number which obviously does not include all the 72 million Chinese blogs as counted by The China Internet Network Information Center. Tease your clients with daily anecdotes from your tourism business. Or be the destination expert. Your choice. Software? WordPress is free.

YouTube
With 71 million unique users a month, YouTube is the 6th largest audience on the net. Connect with your guests in a personal and targeted way - at massive scale. Upload a trailer of your place or the best spots around. Here´s a low budget sample: Come to Sweden.  You can do it better.

Free radio & TV broadcasting
How about hosting your own radio- or TV show? There are lot´s of free software to produce and broadcast a documentary, debate, educational clips or pure entertainment directly from your place. Google “free broadcasting software” and pick one that suits your needs.

E-books
Why not become an author? E-publishing is free. Write a book about your place, be it the history, wildlife or nightlife you´re offering to guests. Write it by using Open Office and turn it into a bestseller by PrimoPDF or similar tools.

Good luck!

Tags: Curt Landin, google earth, Marketing, skype, sweden, tools, Tourism, travel industry, travel news, YouTube

Todays tough business climate makes it even more important to be able to sell. Most industrys have seen an increase in competition, where the globalization has affected companies of all sizes and tourism is no exception. Thousands of articles has been written about how to “behave” for being successful in selling. Not this one.

From my experience, the human nature isn´t easily captured in simple role models. We´re more complex than that. Which is good news. Natural selling does not mean “born with”. It´s not that you can or can not do it. As I see it, it´s more of  a natural and serious attitude to selling, more based on emotions and personality rather than analytical facts. Your ability to be a natural seller can be trained if you´ve got the will to do it. However, it does require you to challenge your own style, be interested in other people as well as your personal development.

1. Be your self
Don´t play roles. There are numerous courses in ”successful sales behaviour”. I guess many of us have a common picture of a “vacuum cleaner salesman”, convincing his clients to buy something they don´t really need. Honestly, how many times have you bought something from such a person? Contrary, you don´t even notice a professional seller. You´ve probably felt that you´ve made your own decision to buy whatever they sold to you, because they knew what they were talking about, were nice & friendly and they solved your problem.

2. Realize that nobody loves everyone
When it comes to selling, it´s more important how you´re perceived by the client than having an in-depth knowledge about your product. Confusing? If your client likes you, you can solve anything together. Then it becomes equally important to know what you are talking about. But if they don´t like you, it doesn´t matter how much product know-how you´ve got. If the chemistry just isn´t there, don´t be an actor pretending to be someone you´re not. Let it go and scout out a new prospect. It will spare you a lot of time. And money.

3. Work methodical
Selling is often pure matemathics: “to get X orders I´ll have to give 4X proposals. To give 4X proposals, I´ll have to meet 10X potential clients. To meet 10X potential clients I´ll have to make about 40X phonecalls”. Every day.

4. Ask. Ask. Ask.
Statements doesn´t sell. Questions do. You´ll have to find out your clients problem (=their need) before you present a solution to it. Ask them. Then ask follow-up questions. Summarize to show you have understood everything correctly, as a confirmation to your client.

5. Use the words “because” and “means”
It´s useless to babble about all the features your product might “have” or “is”. Nobody is interested. As a client, I want to know what these features means to me. Often in terms of time or money. Sample: “We use chartered planes on some routes. This means you get more time to experience the local culture and visit three countries instead of one, because driving would take days and regular flights are just twice a week”.

6. Find out who´s in charge
There´s often more than one person involved in a buying decision, especially if we´re talking about higher amounts. Find out who they are, simply by asking. Try to meet them all, preferably all together so you hear the discussions and, consequently, can give proper information, argue for your offer and meet objections when/if something is questioned.

7. Find an easy way in
Find someone who likes you at the client company. Could be the receptionist. This person is not necessarily one of those allowed to make a buying decision, but he/she might very well know where there is a need for your services. Ask your way forward to the person who´s got the problem your product solves. Within tourism, it might be a distributors need for a better commisionable program or a company clients need for a corporate conference, study tour, board meeting hideaway or whatever. If you´re doing your job well with this person, he will lead you to the decision-maker.

8. Have a goal
Define a goal for your selling work. You have to know where you´re heading, otherwise you´ll probably end up somewhere else. “Build better client relationships” doesn´t work as a goal. “Make 30 phonecalls a day”, “find out who´s making the buying decision at company X” is better. Sale targets should be specific and lead you forward to closing the deal.

9. No = maybe
A “No”  is often a wish for more information. Unless you aren´t way out of your target group. As long as your product reasonably corresponds to your clients needs, there´s a basis for buying decisions. These can be influented by facts, such as price and performance, but also by your commitment and relations. Don´t take no for an answer. Ask questions.

10. The 2nd sentence is most important.
In your first sales call to someone, they should hear you smiling. Stand up while talking, take a look in the mirror and sing a song before you call. Belive me, it´ll do wonders for your voice. Everyone will listen to your first line: “Hi, this is Mark Anderson at XY Company”. But then? The 2nd sentence will make or break it. You need a hook, something different and unusual, but true. Something that makes it worth listening to your offer. Spend some time to find out some alternative introductions for different target groups and try them.

The punch-line: Ask a lagom tricky question. A one your client have no sufficient answer to, but you have the solution. 

You´re a friendly, natural talent. You´re in.

Tags: behaviour, Curt Landin, natural, sales training, selling tips, successful selling, sweden, tour operator, Tourism

Michael Moore, the famous American author, once asked his (American) readers: “So you think you´re clever? OK, who´s the president in Mexico? See… Most people in other countries knows who´s leading the country next to them”.  A quick glance at the Swedish incoming tourism market shows that, with a few exceptions, everybody´s basically promoting the same recipe: a dash of Stockholm, sweetened by an archipelago cruise, some crystal glass shopping in Småland and possibly spiced up by a night at the Ice Hotel winter time.

If you´re a standard tour operator or travel agent that´s fine with me. They are great first time in Sweden-experiences. But if you´d like to offer outstanding tours and this is what you suggest to your clients, I would say you´re on the wrong track.

Creating outstanding tours in Sweden is simply a question of cooperation but, honestly, how well do you really know those who are taking care of your clients in Sweden? And why would you cooperate more with them than just buying the ordinary tours?

Well, 1 + 1 = 3. Two approach angles are better than one. You complement each other, which improves your chances to close the deal with your customers and you get better sales results. When you get to know someone you also support each others in times of trouble and share the joy in happy days. You get inspiration, have fun at work and, more importantly, you´ll learn a lot, which improves your competence and sales ability. Your customers get a better service and quality, you get more customers, more money and hopefully a better life.

From my experience, there are a number of distinctions for non-functional teams:

• Watched communication
  If you speak up about something, you´re quickly criticized
• A lack in disagreement
  Actually, a degree of disagreement is good for business. In a team it must be allowed to express different opinions. Winning teams can handle it. Losers can not.
• Unwillingness to share information
  You keep some “secrets” to yourself. It might be good to you, but not to the team. And in the long run, you´ll most often end up being dumped. Tourism is teamwork.
• Low level of trust
  In tourism you can´t control everything. You have to rely on others. Double checking details is good, but if done repeatedly the wrong way you might rub a few feathers. Trust me…

So, what´s the characteristics of a winning team? I would say there are a number of trails leading to the road of success:

• A common vision and goal
  Do you and your Swedish supplier see the same picture of the future? Where are you heading within a couple of years?
• An identity as a group
  Are you talking about “we” and “them” or are you and your suppliers the same “we” ? Which one? Are you included in their “we” or is there a gap in between?
• Each member has a clear role within the group
  Do the people at your suppliers company understand what you´re expecting from them and do they realize the importance of their contribution to your tours?
• Clear and obvious “game rules” (routines, responsibilities, behavior)
  Tourism is a chain of services provided by a number of people at the same time it´s consumed by the guests in a series of moments of thruth. Successful tourism companies delivers. What they promised. Consequently, everyone involved must know exactly what to do, how and when. Do you?
• A high degree of motivation
  Tourism is about exploring and experiencing. You´re actually selling something that doesn´t exist (yet). It´s something that will be produced later, upon arrival of the guests. Thus, the staff involved has to be engaged and motivated to convey a sense of feelings and emotions for the destination or program you´re promoting.

The swedish tourism entrepreneurs I´ve met are a bunch of nice chaps, so why don´t you give a few of them a call just to get to know each other. It´ll boost your business and you´ll get a new friend or two.

Tags: cooperation, Curt Landin, Marketing, Stockholm, sweden, Tourism, travel industry, travel news, winning team

ıt´s amazing how much money tourism organizations are wasting on inoperative marketing. Ads and brochures that´s actually read by just a fraction of the estimated target group. Swedish municipalities, for example, are printing 4-colored brochures to an amount of SEK 800 millions a year (~US$ 100 Mn). Most of these fancy brochures are dropped in the waste bin after a quick glance at some nice photos.

Not to talk about advertising. H-U-G-E amounts are spent on traditional ads. Sure, you´ll probably reach some interested clients. But at least 3 out of four readers are not.

The same goes for measuring the results of tourism marketing efforts. Old methods like counting guest nights and passenger figures are still widely in use. I would say that businessmen coming to your town for a meeting with their local supplier or distant-living relatives returning home for a wedding party,  is not a result of tourism marketing just because they spend a night or two the local hotel. They would have come anyway.  “We can´t change measuring methods. If we do, we can´t compare it to previous years or other destinations”, is a common explanation. Stone age, I say. Give it up.

Before they travel to a destination, tourists search for information, evaluating the options. Will it be your place or somewhere else? People likes to know where they´re heading. Some of them will choose you, most of them will not. 

Like any company, tourism organizations measures their “products” performance. A customer satisfaction survey or similar questionnaires.  But what about those who considered your place, but choosed not to come? If you´re marketing by ads and brochures, or collecting surveys at the hotel or tourism centre, you´ll never know who these people are or why they didn´t show up. 

Todays E-marketing tools allows you to communicate with them, but I´m not talking about a simple newsletter. I mean dialogue. Questions. Answers. Problemsolving. They´ve already expressed an interest in your place, but for some reason they choosed some other destination this time. It´s your job to find out why and then change peoples attitude. Next time, or after a while, you´ve turned a lot of them into real customers by caring for their needs.

There are a number of ways to gather and save information about potential customers that are explicitly interested in your tours or destination, without having to spend a lot of money on those that are not.

One way is to build a society, club or community. Social marketing with a specified topic. In it´s simpliest form it might be a blog with registered users. Or running travel clubs for different tourism niches, like fishing, local culture, ancient architecture or whatever your destination has to offer certain target groups. Be the expert. Or invite one to provide you with expertise.

Competitions, lotteries, research studies, interviews, articles and movie clips are just a few samples of what´s attracting people enough to fill in their names and numbers because they want the information you´re providing. It´s all about content and interactive dialogue. You have to know your clients.
While your customer database is growing by itself, you can let other businesses that are of interest to your audience hang on to your marketing. Or you can join theirs.

But that´s another story.

Tags: Curt Landin, e-marketing, market research, Marketing, measuring tourism, social marketing, sweden, Tourism, travel industry, travel news

Every now and then I´m surprised how the blog stats suddenly goes up dramatically. I´d like to think it´s because I´ve written about something interesting, but it´s also nice with a helping hand. Thanks to the Blogburst network I´m happy to announce that the posting on “Know your clients - social tourism marketing” recently was published by Reuters, the world´s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals according to themselves. Yeah, that´s where I want to be … It was also inspiring to see the posting on “How about dating a dolphin” in Chicago Sun Times a couple of weeks ago.  Not bad for a snowcovered blogger from Sweden, eh? Thanks a lot, BlogBurst.

Tags: article, blogburst, published, Reuters, sweden, swedentourism, Tourism

Being a tourist in Sweden is cheaper than in ages. A hundred swedish kronor is equivalent to USD 12,16, EUR 9,03 or GBP 8,45 today. It´s a 40% drop in value of the swedish currency since april 2008. This means business for incoming tour operators and overseas agents. However, Riksbanken (the Central Bank) says it´s a temporary situation and expects the krona will be back at normal rates within a year or two. The reason is that, despite the international recession, Sweden has a quite strong position compared to other countries with an overplus in the current account balance.

I wouldn´t say it´s now or never. But it´s definitely a chance to see Sweden at bargain prices this summer.
/ Curt Landin

Tags: bargain, cheap, currency, Curt Landin, sweden, Tourism

Tags: destination management, increase market share, percieved value, price increase, recession, tour operator, Tour Planning, Tourism, Tourism marketing | Tagged: Curt Landin

Tags: Curt Landin, Marketing, Stockholm, sweden, Tour Planning, Tourism, Tourism marketing | Tagged: cooperation, travel industry, travel news, winning team

Travel trade commission structure

Are you one of the lucky guys that are running a tourism business with more demand than what you´re able to supply? I thought not… they´re a rare species. Have faith, there´s help to get if you activate a network of distributors. One of the most effective tools to get others to provide you with lot´s of customers is your pricing strategy.

A packaged tourism product generally contain three core elements: Transportation, accommodation and activities. It´s as simple as that. Or is it? A closer look reveals that these elements might contain a number of components, such as arrival services, transfers & in-country transport, accommodation, food, guiding, activities, experiences, lectures, entrance fees, rental equipment, tipping, baggage handling, service charges, taxes, commissions and administration costs.

It may seem appealing to be able to sell your product exclusively to clients that book direct with you, thus saving on commission, but it can be quite stressful with todays client trend to book later and later. It also leaves you with all the marketing and sales stuff. If you´re cooperating with the travel trade they do it for you, handle all the pre-tour enquiries, administration and provide you with the resulting business, planned and prepared.

When you´re developing a pricing structure for your products it´s s important to understand that there could, and in most cases should, be one or more other entities involved. If you allow them to make a reasonable profit on your tours, they´ll open their customer databases and give you access to an audience you would never have reached by yourself.

Overseas tour operators and clients booking direct often want service providers to provide a range of services rather than having to book and pay 3 or 4 directly service providers in the region they are visiting. If there´s no incoming tour operator or destination management company available, one of the service providers has to be the product owner. This means taking  responsibility for finding, booking and paying for all the services the tour operator or client needs and, consequently, taking this into account when making the quotations and pricing.

One of the most common mistakes tourism entrepreneurs make is to sell their services cheaper to direct sales customers than if they´d booked through an agency or tour operator. Big mistake. You´re out of your distributors´ programmes in the wink of an eye. Instead, your rack price should be the same no matter where the end client makes his reservation.

Commission should always be viewed as a marketing cost and budget for as such. The image above presents briefly the travel trade commission structure and the effect it has on the end price for services booked prior to client travel to the destination. There are of course a number of other requirements to meet if you´d like to be taken seriously by the travel trade. More on that next time.

Tags: commission structure, Curt Landin, Destination development, growth industries, pricing, pricing strategy, sweden, tour operator, Tour Planning, Tourism, Tourism marketing | Tagged: commission, travel trade |