This season, give your travel business a holiday sales advantage through these five ways

Are higher sales volumes playing in your head as travel’s holiday season revs up?

The opportunity looks promising: There is a 25% rise in Indians planning their holidays this winter against last year (according to ET article “International vacations in trend for Indian tourists this holiday season”). Thanks to the rise of low-cost airlines, the government’s UDAAN scheme connecting smaller regional airports, a growth of travelers from tier-II and tier III cities; there is a 70% rise in Indian overseas travel and 15% rise in Indians going on domestic trips!

Making the most of this opportunity is the aim of every travel agency. While there is still time to make the season bright, some of these suggestions can help you do it:-

Holiday time is the time for the family!

Long holidays are a time to focus on relationships and families. Emphasizing upon marketing messages that arouse warm memories, or using holiday decorations and schemes like a book now pay later, which help include more and more family members, can help.

Warm memories of some previous, similar travel experiences can help motivate travelers to buy better travel experiences. Try these questions to boost your creativity:

• What are those packages, travel experiences that make people feel comfortable and nostalgic?
• How do some of your packages or schemes, like, book now, pay later, help families enjoy time together?
• Do you or your staff members have any pleasant holiday memories that could help your marketing messages?

Have well planned holiday upsells and bundling

Identifying product combinations that are common among your customers’ holiday purchases would be useful — for example, Singapore can be bundled with Thailand and Bali. Also, ensure that your sales agents are aware of these patterns so that they can recommend them. A lot of travel providers offer good schemes like a book now pay later to upsell a higher package amount or for bundling extra services, travel locations, etc… for these times.

Start advertising about any such book now, pay later schemes that you wish to offer on the bundled products beforehand.

Put your efforts on retargeting dropouts

The holiday season is a great time to get back lost customers. All customers who enquired about the travel from you but never took it can be retargeted through your holiday season offers like a book now pay later. Not just does this create an urgency to buy, they help customer conversions too.

Showcase book now, pay later options

According to a survey conducted by ET Money, 34% of customers don’t buy a vacation because they don’t have the immediate cash to pay for it. Book now pay later option can solve for this! I have a tie-up with vacation loan providers like SanKash, take advantage of multiple touchpoints to remind travelers how book now, pay later can boost their spending power. Here are some tactics our successful travel partners have used:

• Publish SanKash banner on your advertorials, on your homepage or in-store signage
• Include SanKash’s book now, pay later option in emails and other marketing materials
• Mention the book now, pay later option through SanKash early in your conversation with the customer and in your sales flow

In addition, helping the customer decide to upgrade their travel plan by spreading out the cost of travel over a few months is a great way to convert window shoppers without offering them discounts. Several of our travel partners have found that offering a book now pay later financing deal during their busiest season yielded an average 23% boost in customer conversion!

To sign up with us, visit www.sankash.in and register with us as a travel partner. We can help increase sales conversion for you.