TopDawg Travel

Archive for the ‘Travel Business’ Category

Leave the guidebook behind and allow the experienced staff at Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel (formerly ResortQuest Waikiki Beach Hotel) to coordinate an itinerary that encompasses the best of Oahu’s accommodations, meals, transportation and attractions. The hotel’s new Discover Oahu Package is specifically designed to take the stress out of planning an adventure-filled vacation for two while offering great value and experiences for your Hawaii vacation.Leave the guidebook behind and allow the experienced staff at Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel (formerly ResortQuest Waikiki Beach Hotel) to coordinate an itinerary that encompasses the best of Oahu’s accommodations, meals, transportation and attractions. The hotel’s new Discover Oahu Package is specifically designed to take the stress out of planning an adventure-filled vacation for two while offering great value and experiences for your Hawaii vacation…..read more

Princess Cruises offers travel agents a rigorous training program to familiarize them with all the aspects of selling their cruises to the consumer/cruiser.  This program consists of 25 classes, each taken online with a quiz at the end of each class and an extensive final exam before graduation….read more

In 2009, the Port of Seattle received a number of awards from outside professional organizations in recognition of outstanding achievements in construction and design, airport concessions, communications, financial reporting, budget presentation and environmental leadership….read more

I usually do not try to talk about “Good Deals”, but these are extraordinary times and maybe starting to talk about what constitutes a “good deal” is appropriate – not only for my business (afterall, I, like so many others writing blogs, am in business) but for the consumer.

Take for example Regent Seven Seas Cruises. Now, I will grant you, these are not “cheap” cruises. But value? Definitely a good value. And a good value is a “good deal”!

So as an example: booking between now and March 31, 2009, if a couple want to go to Alaska this summer, and leave from Vancouver, BC for a 7 night cruise to Seward, they can get up to 2-for-1 savings with free air from selected cities and selected cruises and free unlimited shore excursions. NOTE: The shore excursions can frequently cost nearly as much as the cruise cabin when one decides to fully experience the ports of call. This is a huge value-added. And, if you have never sailed with Regent before, you may even qualify for some on-board credit.

The other really cool thing about Regent Seven Seas is this an “all-inclusive” cruise line: complimentary beverages, including fine wines and premium spirits, in-suite mini-bar replenished daily & onboard gratuities included (don’t you just “love” getting your bill at the end of a cruise and seeing anywhere from $10 to $25 per person per day in a gratuity charge?) Now I happen to think that the gratuity charge is a value and really ok – most of the time the wait staff, cabin stewards and all the other service people on the ship do a bang-up stellar job! However, it is the method of presenting this at the time of check out that can be a challenge for people to digest onto their charge cards. I love the concept of paying the gratuity up front.

So while there is a lot of fine print attached to the offerings, there is a lot of value-added to the “good deal”. And these kinds of offering come across my inbox every day, many times a day and from all the different vendors. If someone has cruised with a cruiseline before, they may get all kinds of special offers in the snail mail or their inbox. One of the value-adds of a travel consultant is that they can book these specials for you, be your advocate if necessary and possibly either beat the price you are offered, or get you additional “good deals” in shore excursions, on-board credit, gifts and the like.

As I see “good deals” and “value-added” opportunities over the next couple of months I am going to address them here. Regardless of whether you are in the market for a vacation in the immediate future or somewhere way down the road, watching the good deals come by us can be entertaining reading and certainly food for thought.

Through the summer I read about first the airlines, then the cruiselines and finally resorts charging their guests and customers “fuel surcharges”.  Now every day I read where airlines, cruise lines and other suppliers of hospitality services are (with some guidelines) reducing, or eliminating all together, the fuel surcharges they initiated during the summer of historically high fuel prices.

Travel agents were the front line recipients of consumer complaints about these charges.  And travel agents were equally chargrined about the charges.  No one was exempt from paying them, including travel agents.  And, in the case of the cruise lines, while we had to tell our clients about the fuel surcharges, collect the fuel surcharges and take some heat for the fuel surcharges, we did not get paid a commission on any of the surcharges.  Fuel surcharges and non-commissionable fees & taxes often caused the price of a cruise to more than double from the advertised “cabin” price.  And the cabin price is what travel agents earn their living from.  Those surcharges, along with non-commissionable fees and taxes, moneys spent on excursions and activities, and money spent on goods and services while onboard a ship, are all non-commissionable moneys the cruise lines keep in their own coffers.

EXAMPLE:  So imagine that in a 40 hour work week, you were working 20 hours for free so that the company you worked for could show more profit, or have a higher stockholder return or make more money to take home to the family.    How good would you feel about that?

This pretty much describes the situation for a travel agent.  Roughly half the prices a client pays for their cruise is non-commissionable.   When agents ask the cruise lines to pay commissions on more of the charges, the cruise lines say that those additional moneys collected are profit centers for them and they are not going to give up any of that money to their front line sales force (travel agents).

Just as people would not want to work for free 20 hours each week for their employers, travel agents do not much appreciate the cruise lines asking them to work for free when helping people choose a cruise.  Today’s itineraries are more complicated, the choices for cabins more varied and the excursion choices downright confusing.  There are pre-and post-cruise hotel rooms needed as well as air reservations, shore excursions and good advice.  That is why people go to a travel agent or consultant to begin with, for the expertise, the knowledge, the assurance of having someone who cares about you and looks after your best interests.

So people ask me, how are you being paid?  The best way I can be paid is by word of mouth referrals.  In my business, it takes volume…and I mean lots of volume…to earn a living wage.  So the greatest compliment my clients can give me is a referral to family, friends, clients, co-workers, just about anyone you talk to.  And when you are planning that vacation or cruise, any travel that involves leaving home for a night, call your travel agent.  Do whatever research you want on the internet, but call a travel agent to do the actual booking.  It will cost you exactly the same (or possibly less) as going direct and doing it yourself.  And you will receive valuable advice, have an advocate and someone to turn to if things go south on you.  Your travel agent is just like me: trying to earn a living wage, while performing customer service and loving what they do.