I love a good idea for growing your travel business—and this week I came across two. I was doing what I like to do best, talking to smart travel advisors, this time at the Signature annual conference in Las Vegas. I’m working on a story about what advisors are planning to do differently in 2025, so I’ve been asking attendees here what they’re up to.
I’ll include a few of those stories in a future column. But the one I heard from Amy Westerman and Dave Hoffman, of The Curated Travel Collection, was so good it deserves a story all its own. And the tips on growing your Facebook ranking made me want to marry AI guru Kha Ly so I could have his tech support 24 x 7.
Like all the best stories, Amy and Dave’s begins in a bar, where Amy got to chatting and “swapping stories” with another customer, as travel advisors are wont to do. It turned out that he was on the Board of Trustees at Clemson University; eventually he hired her to plan a family vacation to Disney, and then, Clemson’s Board meetings. In time, Amy and Dave became donors to Clemson Life, a charity that helps adults with disabilities, and often tailgated with friends at Clemson football games.
So when they got to brainstorming about how to achieve their goal of “going back to relationship building” for 2025, they got to thinking that their ideal clients were right there in the Clemson parking lot, tailgating with them.
Football tailgates have multi-gen families from all over the country who are paying for expensive tickets, and “the amount of private jets flying in and out is crazy,” Amy told me. They can afford luxury travel. And the generations are hanging out together, so you can talk travel planning with all of them at once.
So Amy and Dave have been spending their marketing dollars on luxury tailgating parties, in a large tent, fully catered by the restaurant in town. There are bartenders noisily shaking drinks to draw the adults, and games like Giant Jenga to draw the kids. If you hear about the party and don’t feel like walking over, there’s a golf cart service to drive you.
“There’s food, drinks, and conversation drawing in the right people to talk about where they want to go,” Amy says.
So far the pair has run two tailgate parties, learning the ropes and testing the idea. Now they are putting out the word that in 2025, “this is where you’ll find us every single game. Come on over and have a drink. And bring your families and friends,” Dave says.
They’re a big agency, with 365 independent contractors. And while they are reaching out to suppliers to partner and offset the cost, which they figure averages about $12,000, they are determined to hold their tailgate parties in any case.
“It’s something we haven’t seen at Clemson,” Amy says. “But we found that college campuses are our ideal place to find new business. It’s a lucrative market. The idea is once we get this going, we’ll start doing it in other places, with our advisors in other cities, targeting schools like Texas A&M.”
An AI Master Offers Up Tips
Later in the day, AI guru Kha Ly kidded around with his buddy ChatGPT as he demonstrated just how much a smart travel advisor has to gain from the new technology—and offered a list of do’s and don’ts.
Among them:
Don’t ever think you are posting too much. Odds are hardly anyone is seeing your posts; for every 100 followers, it’s likely that two seeing it. You will not look thirsty; you need to post.
Don’t post on Instagram and share to Facebook; you don’t get credit for the share. Post separately.
Prompt ChatGPT or TobyAI to “take the role of a UX designer and tell me all the changes I should make to my website.” If you are going for the luxury market, neutral colors and lots of white space rule.
Don’t use AI images as a general rule—but go for it if there is no other way. Tell Ideagram “I need a picture of Santa wearing a name tag with my agency name.”
Be creative. Ask ChatGPT to rewrite The 12 Days of Christmas based on an Avalon cruise.
Meta AI only ranks reels and vertical videos, not regular posts. So make your posts Facebook reels. Don’t get fancy with the text; think, “what would someone be searching for?” Always begin the text with the key words at the top of the video, not the bottom, in the largest font. The more rare the video the better, so always try to get on an inaugural where there is no competing content. Use a hook: Five fun facts about the Sphere. If you don’t know one, ask MetaAI.
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.
