Choosing a specialty is the first step in starting a niche travel program. There are possibilities everywhere you look. So how do you go about finding a successful and fulfilling niche?
You can start your search immediately with The Travel Institute! Join Patty Noonan, CTC for her presentation, Specialization—Finding Your Travel Industry Niche, TODAY at 1:00 pm (EST). You will learn how to identify your niche, set yourself apart from the competition, and help you sell more travel.
With a seemingly endless list of areas in which to specialize, narrowing down to one or two is a crucial step—and a good exercise in developing an effective marketing and strategic plan. After all, your specialty needs to be consistent with your own interests and your overall business plan.
For more knowledge on different specializations, along with business and marketing plans, check out the resources in The Travel Institute’s Premium Library.
Here are six tips for getting started:
- Consider yourself and your resources. Look inward and think about your hobbies, activities, and personal and professional affiliations; list your skills, interests, background, experience, and contacts you can tap to develop a special interest travel program. Research your location and the geographical spread of the target market, as well as the advertising and financial resources available to reach that market. Take into account your current and future networking potential via social media and websites.
- Explore your community. Successful professionals often are involved in their communities and regularly schedule networking events and community engagement as part of their business week. These organizations may be a source of potential business as an affinity group. The individual members also may inspire ideas for special interests. Ask members what new activities or hobbies they are pursuing. Someone may mention building a wine cellar for a growing wine collection. Another may talk about a new kayak purchase. Yet another may discuss the latest books he or she is reading about Mayan archaeological sites. You might come up with some surprising new ideas.
- Don’t forget your family. Do any family members or friends play golf at the local country club? If so, perhaps you could ask them to act as a Pied Piper for golfers.
- Think about your neighbors. Are there people who are active locally—perhaps with a soccer team, a local museum, or non-profit organizations—who would be naturals for drawing a group for a special interest tour?
- Be active in social media. Online networking is key to staying current in the travel marketplace, from both an education and sales perspective. Where are potential customers traveling? How are they spending their free time on the weekends? Are new trends developing for destinations, hobbies, or interests? Social media can help answer these questions and uncover special interest travel ideas.
- Evaluate your personal and professional background. Think about your training and experience. Have you gone on any FAM trips? Did you complete any of The Travel Institute’s Destination Specialist courses, such as Southern Europe? Anywhere you look in your community, you can find the beginnings of a group—perhaps amateur watercolorists who may be interested in traveling to the south of France. Many of the connections in your personal or professional life can link you to potential travelers.
Creative travel consultants are breaking away from mass market travel products. These agents use their expertise and strong connection with clients and the industry to offer high levels of personal service not found on the internet. In today’s competitive marketplace, there is no better way for agents to flourish than by carving new markets for themselves and by creating distinctive identities through special interest travel.
For a library of specialist courses, explore The Travel Institute’s Premium Library.
