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| Monday, 25 June 2012 |
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| FIVE MINUTES WITH EMMA COTTIS, GOWAY TRAVEL | |||||
| The product and marketing manager discusses the upcoming website launch, pre- and post-cruise packages and Goway's destination experts | |||||
| Zachary-Cy Vanasse | |||||
TRAVELHotNews.com recently caught up with Emma Cottis, product and marketing manager, to find out how travel agents can best use Goway’s destination experts, what might be coming down the pipe line from the tour operator in the future and what is already on offer that agents should explore further. What can agents look forward to from Goway in the near future? The big thing that is coming up for agents is the website, which should launch, as a soft launch, by November. It will have a lot more pricing and will be a lot more dynamic. Agents will be able to go through and search for qualifying packages. We are also trying to do even more with agents in terms of giving them tools to market our products. More “click and send” for agents to take our email blasts, strip off all our contact details and logos, and then send it out to their own clients. So we’re trying to convey tools like that. We’ve got some new pricing initiatives that are coming out for Australia at the moment...So there are a lot of really good deals out there. We are just trying to give agents the tools and the destination knowledge they need. Is there anything that Goway currently offers that agents should be paying more attention to? Probably the biggest one would be our cruise product. We are really trying to focus on the cruise market. What we are trying to do is help the cruise agents maximize what they are selling. Instead of just selling the cruise and airfare - and then they are not making off any of the pre- and post-cruise commissionable product - we are just trying to educate them that we have all these packages they can [sell]. The clients benefit because they get savings and more variety in choice of shore excursions...we have everything from wine tours to the wildlife tours. Everything that we’re doing is designed to try and help agents sell and maximize because everybody is cutting commission. The money has to come from somewhere, so we are trying to come up with creative packages that can compete there and still give agents commission. What are some of the details of the Goway pre- and post-cruise tour products? Most of them are city modules. You have, [for example], a cruise going from Sydney to Singapore; as it doesn’t have to be just Australia. That pre-cruise package would normally include something along the lines of a Blue Mountain stay tour, a Rocks Walking – which is the old part of Sydney – and their transfers. So they’d have three nights. If they had more time before their cruise we might do something like the Great Barrier Reef and Ayer’s Rock. It is all customizable. It’s about the agent knowing about how long the client has got. They then come to us and say: “Okay, we’ve booked the cruise. This is how long the client has.” We will then actually put something together for them to present to the consumer. The same as with all of our business, the dialogue is important. We talk to the agent who knows the consumer and we know the product. So between the two of us, we can marry up a pretty impressive FIT. What should agents keep front of mind when they are thinking of selling Goway product? Our consultants can consult with the agent. So if [the agent] doesn’t necessarily know the destination, our staff does. The way Goway is structured is: each staff member focuses solely on a destination. So what agents can do is call us up and we will actually do a consultation between Goway, the agent and the client, so that everyone is on the same page. That way we can impart the knowledge and give them all the options. I think that’s one of the big selling points for us, because agents are often selling the whole world in many cases. |
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