There was a lot of news—and a record number of travel advisors and suppliers sharing tips on how to sell land vacations—at the Avoya Land Forum in Mexico last week. Some of the numbers bordered on astounding. The biggest growth was Cindy Roller’s 216% year-to-date; the top seller, Andrew Wells, booked $1.7 million in land alone; and the top land rookie, Ana Serpa, sold $167,000 in her first nine months in business. The largest sale of the year was Carri Kersten’s $63,000 Delta vacation; the largest group was Annamaria Livdal’s, at $100,000.
Also notable is the growing commission base that land is delivering. Avoya said land commissions are up 40% two years ago and 60% this year—good news for both advisors and suppliers, because they came from increased spend rather than rising commission rates.
New from Avoya Travel are the Avoya Flights, Avoya Hotels and affinity group booking programs, plus a consumer marketing campaign designed to attract not just new customers, but also new travel advisors.
Above all, though, the forum highlighted the value of selling land vacations for travel advisors more accustomed to selling cruise.
Many attributed their success to Avoya’s lead generation system. But at Sun, Sand, Sea Travel in Bella Vista, AR, Shelley Robinson also has had success using Thumbtack, where she pays $200 a week and gets 10-15 leads. Of those, she has booked 30 or 40 trips, including one family that requested a last-minute Christmas vacation in Philadelphia and came back to book Costa Rica, Italy and Montreal.
“It is expensive, but of course the goal is to build a steady enough base to not have to use that anymore,” Robinson says.
Top seller Andrew Wells, though, attributes his success almost entirely to Avoya’s lead generation program. “On the land side, I do Club Med, CIE Tours, Collette and Globus, and that’s about it,” he says. For ClubMed, Avoya has strong partnerships with those brands and generates a large quantity of both web-based and phone leads through their marketing. For the others, he assists with web requests. But once he gets the leads, it’s all about Wells’ own expertise and salesmanship.
He is one of the highest land close rates in the Avoya network (12%). And while he declined to cite an exact amount, “when I look at my stats, my year-over-year commission per booking is much higher now than it was a year ago. I’m booking more land, which is higher commission than low-end cruising.”
Attracted to Avoya in 2021 because of the live lead program “because that’s the hard part of starting a business.” He’s just now starting to reach out for his own customers. But with year-to-date sales at $2.6 million for land and sea, “we haven’t pushed it. But we just sponsored a Little League team for the first time.”
Like Wells, many travel advisors are selling both land and cruise. Newcomers Tom and Christine Kelly of Single Step Travel Planners in Great Barrington, MA, for example, have been splitting their learning curve since an article in Entrepreneur magazine brought them into the travel industry as a second career. Since signing up with Avoya last year, Tom has been focusing on land and Christine on cruise. “We’re doing a lot of Avoya leads,” they say, and putting together a group to Ireland. They are doing so well their daughter is coming aboard next month.
Not everyone depends on the Avoya leads, though. Brando Quinn of Brando’s Fun and Sun Travel and Cruise says he has gotten to about $1.5 million in sales this year—about 25% of it in all-inclusive land—by word of mouth alone. “I have just gotten to be known as the travel guy, and definitely the specialty cruise guy,” he says. “But my land sales have probably increased 50%. (Avoya’s new partnership with) Travel Leaders Network brings a lot of amenities, and that’s increasing our sales exponentially.”
He also does think his no-fee policy helps. “I look at not charging fees as a community service, and I feel like the goodwill that I share in the community comes back to me much greater than a fee.”
Tips for Building Your Land Sales
Norma Rodriguez, director of strategic partnerships for Travel Leaders Network, noted that an easy step for Avoya agents is to become SuperAgents in the Agent Profiler system. To qualify, all it takes is 15 customer reviews and four bios showing your focus on four niches, a photo album and one pin in the map showing somewhere you have been. Then, when customers search, you will be in a group of 450 Super Agents rather than the full database of 11,000+ travel advisors. “It’s an awesome lead generator,” she said.
It’s important for travel advisors to belong to a host or consortium in this environment, says Lydia Torres of Pleasant Holidays. “Those connections and partnerships bring the communication that builds the relationship. They are an advantage for the travel advisor and the wholesaler.”
The most successful travel advisors at group business are those who look at every group as an opportunity to win every member as a new client, said Mike Ehlers, VP of groups at ALG Vacations. “They engage with guests throughout the group’s life cycle to showcase their knowledge, offering tips about the destination and the hotels, and that helps them keep those customers for life.” They’re also creative about social media, making themselves stand out in unique ways, congratulating wedding couples and showcasing weddings so others can dream of something similar.
Of course, the best way is to come see the resorts for yourself, says David Ryan at Inclusive Collection by Hyatt (whose beautiful property, Secrets Punta Mita, hosted the conference). With so much new inventory—including a Secrets in St. Lucia, Impressions by Secrets in Isla Mujeres, Dreams Grand Island, Secrets in Tulum (opening October 12) and new European properties including Tenerife, the Canary Islands, Majorca and Greece—“we’re trying to get as many agents as we can out there to see the new resorts; so, in addition to discounted rates were running quite a few agent fam trips.” Talk to your local BDM.
One great way to introduce cruise clients to land is to offer a day-pass to a resort in Cozumel or Puerto Vallarta, so they experience this new way of traveling, Ryan said. And to grow your existing land sales, always suggest Preferred Club, so guests have their own lounge and private check-in. “Don’t ever feel bad about upselling. If you don’t upsell before they go, I promise they will do it themselves when they get there.”
Avoya News
For Avoya Travel, meanwhile, new partnerships with Travel Leaders Network and Certares, the global travel investment firm, are yielding new products to its growing customer and travel advisor bases.
Avoya is working on both a land and an air booking engine to simplify the process, link in Travel Leaders Network suppliers and make it easier to track commissions.
Comparing year-to-date in 2023 to the same point in 2019, land sales are up 25%. Year-to-date, land sales with preferred partners up 40%, and new-to-Avoya travelers are up 30%. For travel advisors, a notable number is that 70% of reservations will travel within six months, meaning a fast payout of commissions to those who are new to the trade.
Indeed, Avoya SVP of sales Steve Hirshan told TRO, “when you ask if our land growth can continue at this pace, I’d say yes, and here’s why. People go on a cruise every two or three years, but they go on vacation every year. So, we don’t have to find new clients—we just have to communicate to our cruisers to come to us for their land vacations.”
Hirshan noted that Avoya’s training program, launched in November, and outreach program for new agents—which includes three staffers in marketing and nine in recruitment—have brought in 500 new-to-the-industry enrollees, who come from their Travel Agent Education Powered by the Avoya platform.
His tip for newcomers? If your five-year plan is a straight line up, remember that business just doesn’t work that way. “Look back in history—at 9/11 and Covid-19—and note that every four or five years something significant happens that detracts from business. The gravy train will not go on forever, so save up for those rainy days.”
Still, though, 2024 does looks like it’s headed nowhere but up.
When Certares Management LLC first invested in Avoya, one principal there noted that the most interesting thing about Avoya is its focus on the home-based travel advisor, who he believes is the future of the travel industry, said Avoya marketing SVP Sam McCully. In Q1, Avoya rolled out a consumer-facing marketing campaign to emphasize the value of the travel advisor.
Called “Leave it to the Experts,” it emphasizes the level of service and the quality of planning and booking that independent agencies create, including stories of how travel advisors helped clients during the pandemic. The 15- and 30-second commercials ran on Hulu and YouTube, and in podcasts that target high-end leisure travelers.
Since the spots have been running, Avoya has been seeing some “interesting overlap” of potential customers who also are expressing interest in becoming travel advisors themselves.
For Q3, it will be feeling out an expansion to Avoya Travel, “messaging with travelers about becoming a travel advisor, based on their lifestyles and desire to travel the world while making a living.” Early tests look good.
To retain the new customers, Avoya “is looking at all facets of the customer journey, from initial touchpoint to continuing loyalty and repeat business, in an effort to continue enhancing the traveler experience.” SVP of Strategic Operations Nathan Osborne “has been tasked with creating a Traveler Experience team, and there will be more to come on that front later this year.”
In the end, “all this flows from our relationship with Certares—their expertise and the collaboration that happens at the board level, that permeates down,” McCully said.
Cheryl’s 40-year career in journalism is bookended by roles in the travel industry, including Executive Editor of Business Travel News in the 1990s, and recently, Editor in Chief of Travel Market Report and admin of Cheryl Rosen’s Group for Travel Professionals, a news and support group on Facebook. As an independent contractor since retiring from the 9-to-5 to travel more, she has written regular articles about the life and business of travel agents for Luxury Travel Advisor, Travel Agent, and Insider Travel Report. She also writes and edits for professional publications in the financial services, business, and technology sectors.
