A TRAVEL AGENT’S INTRODUCTION TO

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A Travel Agent’s Introduction to Women Only Travel

Steve Crowhurst, CTC

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A Travel Agent’s Introduction to Women Only Travel Copyright © 2015 Steve Crowhurst, SMP Training Co. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise whatsoever without written permission or authorization through payment of a Permission to Copy fee (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews) . For information please contact SMP Training Co. smptraining@shaw.ca or call 250-738-0064. Protected by the Canadian Copyright Act. For general information on SMP publications and services please email: steve@sellingtravel.net

Limit of liability/disclaimer of warranty: SMP Training Co., publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation, warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising here from. The fact that an organisation or website is referred to in this work as a citation and / or potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information, the organisation or website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

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TOPIC PAGE Introduction 4

Do you have a Niche? What is it? 6

Describe the women (customers) you would like to attract. 6

Five Tips to Choosing a Specialty by Steve Gillick 7

Wild Women Who Have Gone Before You 8

What Do Women Want (to do when they travel?) 10

How Women Travel Infographic 10

Where do solo female travellers stay? 11

What’s Your Next Move? 13

JourneyWoman – Travel Resource for Women 13

Women Only Websites to Review 17

Listing Your Women Only Product 18

Women Travel the World 18

Specialty Travel 18

Trekity Website – Travel Tips, Books, Inspiration 19

Marketing To Women 21

Using Found Images of Women 23

Finding Images of Women 25

Social Media Marketing 28

Chart: How consumers wish to be contacted 29

E-Mail 29

Postal Mail 30

Television Ads 30

Print Media 31

Text Message 31

In Person 31

Phone Call 31

Online Videos 31

Mobile Apps 31

Marketing Your Own Social Media Network 32

Blogging 33

More Marketing Ideas 35

The Press Release, Guest Speaking, 35

Talk Shows, Videos, The Agency Window 36

The Digital Brochure / Magazine 37

The She-Conomy 38

Create Your Own She-Conomy 39

Female Friendly Suppliers 40

Stayin’ Alive – Tips, Tools & Techniques to keep your clients safe 42

Registering Travel Plans 50

Planning Page 51

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Introduction

Although male travel agents can sell women only travel & tours, women in travel selling to their fellow females have the edge. The content of this eGuide is for all travel agents, however, where required the focus will address the female travel agent selling travel to their female clients. Women only travel seems to have an excellent financial ring to it, and it’s a terrific niche to focus on if you identify with many of the issues women face when travelling alone or within groups. No doubt this eGuide will be preaching to the choir as 80% or more travel agents are women. That said very few women in travel actually focus on selling to women in a way that presents a niche opportunity as it can be done. Most often a female client is considered just another a client with the rest of the clients with nothing special added into the marketing mix. Here then we will open the doors to how you can sell more travel to your female clients and further develop a dedicated female following. As mentioned above, male travel agents can also create women-only tour programs and they should, however female travel agents have a slight edge of course and would be more able to discuss more intimate details of a woman’s needs when travelling. Below are my ads from the late 1970’s when I operated a department called Womans World Travel. The ad layouts then were type set and look terrible against what we can create today. Now we do our own layouts in a digital format which gives you so much more leeway with your designs to capture a female set of eyes. Okay let’s move on. Just wanted to show you that the women only niche is not new and that men can also accommodate and attract more women travellers.

The female traveller comes in all shapes and size, races, religions and lifestyles. Some come with a family and others girlfriends and others are the solo independent traveller. Going it alone and loving it. Single women are not always accepted in some parts of the world and depending on skin colour, hair colour and clothing, your female client could be entering a very scary moment in her travels. Your knowledge of the world for a single woman travelling alone has to be current and cutting edge. Your advice is crucial to ‘her’ survival in certain circumstances.

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As you well know, product knowledge is a key component to being successful in selling travel. The same thing applies when you venture off into a well-known niche and also a niche not so well known such as women only programs. Given the fact that you intend to attract the female traveller and send them far and wide, it would serve you well to know who has gone before both you and your female clients. This knowledge will give you confidence, open up new ideas for tours and trips in the footsteps of those intrepid women who did break from tradition, i.e. the kitchen sink, and bolted out the door to travel the world when it was against them to do so shouting over their shoulder, “Cook it yerself, ya great lummox!” Here’s a place to start – The list of female explorers and travelers found here at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_explorers_and_travelers

As you explore this webpage and dig deep into the lives of the women on this list you will be amazed at what they did and when they did it. Some ladies in full Victorian dress, hiking through forests and desert and others going for menswear as it were and riding horseback. Some became sailors and went to sea disguised as men, others married ships captains and sailed with them.

Who Have Gone Before You

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The list is long. The usual activities come to mind of course such as shopping, spas and cruising however when you explore in more detail you will find that many of your female clients love to fish, paint onsite, climb rock faces, sit astride a Harley and zip across the country, others are OM’ing in India or taking Karate lessons in Okinawa. Food is good, wine too and so cooking lessons in Italy and any other countries sell well. Volunteering vacations are huge. There are over 300 plus activities that can be labelled as specialty and then there’s that list of 195 – 210 countries they can visit except for the ones under siege and warring with their neighbours. Put all of this information on the table and you have some work to do. Now, you could hone in on your own passion as already mentioned and turn that passion into your women only tour product. Why not? It’s the quick way to riches when done well. If you do not have a specific travel passion, then you must be more business-like in your decision and go with what’s making money today - and that is based on where women are going, what they are doing, how long for and how much they are shelling out. On the next page you’ll find excellent data although from a 2013 survey. You must hone in on such information when you see it as this type of survey is not conducted every year or at a time when YOU want it. The location of this information also offered a SHARE THE IMAGE comment and that we’ll do. Here are the bloggers behind the data: Breathe Dream Go Dangerous Business Otts World and The Shooting Star

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Here’s a couple of websites where you can build traction for your product – one is dedicated to Promoting women’s travel businesses to women travellers around the world and that would be Women Travel the World – click on the image below to view their website.

The other is Specialty Travel well known to me and although not dedicated to women only products it has an excellent reach to both consumer and trade. You can order their catalogue - printed version and review how others promote their products. You can look for online and hardcopy advertising too. I’ve copied part of their content found under the Advertise With Us tab.

By participating in the Specialtytravel.com advertising program you reach both the travel agent and consumer markets. Our website directory format presents your message to both travel agent readers and consumer web users around the globe. Our website is accessed by over 60,000 monthly users. Through the "Find Your Adventure" search engine feature of our website we offer targeted marketing opportunities for your various programs. For advertising information: use our online advertising information request. For a media kit including advertising rates and dates, please contact Andy Alpine at

aalpine@specialtytravel.com.

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Now it’s time to take your product and or services to market and of course they must address and speak directly to a female audience. Keep in mind one thing:

Women Don’t Do Pink!

Most promotions targeting women that come in pink tones die a quick death. It’s true. I learned l-o-n-g ago that to use pink to attract women to climb the Matterhorn for instance ain’t gonna work! As a travelling woman you’d know this – however just in case, I thought it worth mentioning as colour is one of the most important aspects of marketing however it can also show that your thinking and profiling techniques are redundant.

- Your marketing approach should appeal to the women you are trying to reach.

- It must show you understand them and their travel needs both generic and niche based.

- Your knowledge of women by generation, by travel type is important.

- Your graphics need to appeal and show women in the travel imagery.

- The female traveller is not a niche or specialty – they are a primary consumer. The niche is what you are selling to them.

One thing you do not want to do is label your female clients. Hotel chains are attempting to woo the single woman without kids. There is a term “Otherhood” as opposed to Motherhood and with that style of profiling comes a whole bunch challenges. Let your marketing simply target a woman by interest and passion for a certain type of travel and let “her” decide if the tour product is for her. You can use generic terms such as Girls Getaways for instance and let ‘the girls’ whoever they are, married, single, with or without kids, decide to join or not. You might use the terms

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MARKETING YOUR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORK If those reports are correct and women do love to socialize via social media exchanging messages, images and more with friends, family and their new-found contacts in their social circles you may want to consider starting your own social network with SOCIAL GO.

Using the Social Go platform you can create a social network that will work similar to Facebook. The reason you would start your own social network is to keep the communication ONLY amongst your female clients. You can and should maintain a Facebook business page too, and use it to redirect your Facebook followers to your Social Go community.

BLOGGING Blogging is another key to your success and although it takes focus and dedication to think up and write about something every day, or every week, it is one way to keep the wheels oiled and to gain new clients. In addition to blogging, you might want to take a look at websites such as BrooWaha… where you can SHARE YOUR NEWS.

To open an account look to the top right of the webpage and click on Register. Select your theme and start writing. Travel always seems to receive clicks and a good pal of mine was receiving some

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Ask your existing female followers about their shopping attitudes when it comes to travel. The word on the street is that women tend to research more, shop around more and want to develop a relationship before buying. Is that true for your clients? Might be. But then here’s the difference – in your neck of the woods only YOU will be offering a new travel product for women only. There is only one place to shop, locally, and that’s at your agency. So generating your own travel SHE-CONOMY could be relatively easy as long as you get to know your female clients beyond the basics. Look for conferences like the one shown below – although generic and across all businesses, there might be a few nuggets of knowledge to bring home. You might also want to arrange a sit down chat with your preferred suppliers and tap into their knowledge about the women travellers they serve.

YOUR PREFERRED SUPPLIERS PLAY A HUGE ROLE IN YOUR PLANNING AND FOR SURE IN THE TRAVEL PRODUCTS YOU EVENTUALLY CREATE… READ ON:

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Travel safety appears to be the number one concern

for female travellers!

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The outcome of anyone’s travels is to return home safe and sound and then tell your friends all about your trip. Leaving is one thing. Returning is another. Then there is every minute in between. There are rules to travelling today and they affect everyone - male, female, young and old. There is also, despite authorities saying it doesn’t exist “here”, racial profiling is alive and well. A Greek pal of mine, (male), who when tanned will be asked where in the Middle East he was born. Wrong! Women travelling alone in certain countries will need to be dressed accordingly, head covered and move around with minimal “noise” so as not to attract attention. One mistake in thinking that the culture of a country is only for the locals will lead to dire circumstances. A white skin, topped by blonde hair is a signal. Just like mine which was red – when I moved, people looked. In Japan, the locals took pictures of me! How to stay alive when travelling alone or in a group means to be aware of one’s surroundings. As the travel agent of record you can only do so much to forewarn your clients and forewarn you must.

Okay, for the next few pages, the content and information may appear to be slightly over the top, but I assure you it isn’t. As the majority of female travellers state that safety is their number one concern then you must know how to handle this fear. It is also reported that this fear also prevents some women from travelling, full stop. They would love to travel and visit countries they have dreamed about, but not confident in doing so. The following pages address some of the basic tips, tools, gadgets and apps that will help your female clients enjoy their vacation and return home safely.

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Unfortunately not enough travellers take advantage of the safety connection that their home countries have created for them. In simple terms most countries have a consulate or embassy located in the major cities, in most countries, or at least in the countries they are friendly with. Shown here is the Australian Smart Traveller webpage and as you can see the arrows are pointing to the REGISTER your travel plans page. If you live in America, Canada, UK, etc., then your Foreign Affairs, Embassy and or Consular Services have set up a program whereby you and your clients can register your travels. Once registered you need to travel smart and that means you should check in by phoning the local Embassy when arriving overseas and also let them know when you are leaving. Repeat the same process at your next stop.

Make sure your female clients register with their local consulate and check in / advise when leaving – in this way your clients can be traced and tracked by their country’s consular team.

If you are not familiar with where your own country’s embassies are located, then get online and check them out.

Start here at Embassy World: http://www.embassyworld.com/

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Additional Notes

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About The Author Steve Crowhurst Travel trade keynote speaker, trainer, author & publisher.

Steve entered the retail travel industry in 1965 and has worked from the front line to the executive floor, owned and operated his own travel agencies, travel trade training and consulting firms and has worked from a home office for over 20 years. In 2010 he published his 412 page book 273 “No Fluff - No Theory” Marketing Ideas for Travel Agents; in June 2011 he published the first digital issue of Selling Travel magazine. Steve is now turning all of his workshops and webinars into easy to read, street savvy eGuides. Check back often at www.sellingtravel.net for new titles. If you would like Steve to speak at your conference or convention, deliver management level webinars or work with your executive team please email him directly: steve@sellingtravel.net

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