Travel Prospect

By Scott Ahlsmith, CTC
President & CEO, Magellan360

We know the difference between needs and wants — and so do today’s travelers. They need a vacation, they want to play golf.
We also know that travelers’ wants change as their economic status, environmental status, social status and lifestyles change. Their wants also change as destinations and travel opportunities change. These changes require us, as travel professionals, to change the way we speak to our travel prospects.
Modifying how we speak with prospective travelers isn’t as difficult as learning to speak a new language, but it requires keeping up with trends, being willing to trade in our old sales scripts for new ones and our commitment to including life-long learning in our career paths.
Some things change more slowly; like Dale Carnegie’s Sales Advantage course that teaches, “If you want to receive your prospect’s attention, talk with her briefly about something that interests her.” This advice is as appropriate today as it was 30 years ago when I completed this selling skills course.
To get and keep your prospect’s attention in today’s environment, you need to know what interests him. Through recent surveys conducted by impartial firms like Harris Interactive, Cendant and Travel Industry Association of America (TIA), we know that travelers want expertise, experience, comparative pricing, personalization, customization and your recommendation.
We also know, according to Elliott Ettenberg’s “The Next Economy,” that travelers’ purchases are becoming increasingly more aspirational than functional. This means travelers are searching more for that good story or experience to tell friends and family about when they return home than they are in getting from point A to point B.
This also means that as needs replace wants, learning what travel prospects want rather than focusing on what they need is a sure way to gain their attention, or speak with them briefly about something in which they are interested.
Aspirational travelers also tend to spend beyond their predetermined budgets. Today’s travel prospects may ask for the lowest price, but what they really want is to move a rung or two up the economic ladder so they can enjoy a higher social status while they’re traveling. To prove this point, I remember the cruise passenger who convinced his agent that he wanted the cheapest inside cabin for his Panama Canal cruise. When the agent followed up with a welcome home call, the passenger told her about the $40,000 he spent at the onboard art auctions. He justified spending more than he budgeted by telling himself that he worked hard and deserved to splurge, pamper, or treat himself every once in awhile. Unfortunately, the art auctioneer spoke this traveler’s language better than the travel agent.
Functional travel sales still exist, but they have settled into the commodity category. Airline travel, for instance, is primarily functional, which is why today’s travelers flock to Web sites to purchase air travel. In their mind air travel is a commodity. They don’t need expertise, experiences or professional recommendations. After all, they have flown twice during the past two years and their experience was the same both times, so now they are experts.
Two airline travel products transcend the commodity stigma — Jet Blue and private jets. Jet Blue uses the same airplanes, the same airports and the same personnel, but they understand that the aspirational traveler wants a good story to tell when they return home. Jet Blue gives them personalized audio and video in a friendly, pleasant environment. Fans of Jet Blue have something new and unusual to talk about when they return home. They tell everyone who will listen how they could watch all the television and movies they wanted and how they were treated with respect and appreciation by airline personnel.
Private jet travel also scratches a traveler’s aspirational want. It not only bypasses TSA prodding and groping, but it is available on demand and costs a small fortune. Private jet travelers are searching for the same aspirational fulfillment that all travelers want. They just have larger bank accounts.
Some businesses, however, capitalize on selling commodities or functional products to aspirational consumers. Target, Costco and Home Depot built successful businesses by gaining their customers’ trust to do the comparative shopping for them. Costco goes as far as to change brands from one store visit to another just to demonstrate that they are always scouting out the best value.
No one travel booking Web site or comparative search engine site has yet to master for travel commodities what Costco, Home Depot and Target have mastered for other commodities. This is primarily because most travel Web sites are subsidized by advertising and pop-up promotions and today’s consumer equates this kind of advertising with bias and prejudice. Today’s consumers would rather notice that Costco stocks a different brand of microwave popcorn this week than to see a flashing sign saying, “Buy Showtime Popcorn,” in every aisle.
One reason today’s travelers will begin migrating from large travel Web sites that are biased due to their dependence on advertising revenue, to unbiased and neutral travel professionals is because travel professionals speak the traveler’s language, not the supplier’s language.
Travel professionals have a very bright future if they understand that travelers want their experience, advice and unbiased recommendations. By selling yourself first, you gain your prospect’s attention. By asking five-sensing interview questions, you hold your prospect’s attention. As you and your prospect begin narrowing possibilities and targeting in on one tantalizing travel experience, five-sensing questions transport your prospect from a commodity price-oriented pain-in-the-neck to a more emotional and passive grateful client.
For example, a five-sensing question sounds like, “How does that look to you?” or, “Can you see yourself preparing for that night dive?” or, “How do you feel about a Tuscan cooking school?” Do these questions sound good to you?
After receiving affirmative answers to five-sensing questions, you have scratched the traveler’s aspirational itch and the sale is starting to close without you doing much more than provide information.
Closing aspirational travel sales is different than closing functional or commodity travel sales. Functional or commodity sales are closed by lowest price or price coupled with brand influences like Costco, Home Depot and Target.
Once today’s travelers receive enough information to complete their vision and mentally transport themselves into the travel experience, they close the sale themselves. The best aspirational travel closing skill a travel professional can employ is to simply get-out-of-the-way. Let the vision and the aspirational emotions close the sale.
Aspirational sales are closed by providing information that creates a vision, triggers an emotion, and projects the traveler into the travel experience before they begin their trip. If you can speak to travel prospects in their language you can scratch their aspiration itch and they will buy.
What is the next step? Practice is the key, as it is when learning most languages. I find the bathroom mirror (once I get over the initial bed-head look) is a good place to begin each morning by rehearsing new language patterns, five sensing questions and responses.
Remember to sell yourself first, ask five-sensing questions and follow up with your personal recommendations. That is the language that travel prospects understand.