Vacation.com discusses new initiatives, outlook for 2015

The long under-optimized URL of Vacation.com will soon be revealing a new consumer-directed interface, set to leverage the consortium's name to connect members with prospective clients. President John Lovell made the announcement at last year's annual conference, and the official unveiling is set for this year's event, scheduled to take place in April.

The current Vacation.com homepage features messaging about the business and an agency locator but organic visitors to the site are not likely realizing the user experience they are seeking, admits Stephen McGillivray, chief marketing officer of Travel Leaders Group (parent company to V.com).

For some time, the company has been considering the best approach for such a valuable domain name - even tossing around the idea of going up against sites such as Orbitz and Expedia as an OTA - but ultimately decided the best approach is to stick with its strengths.

"We've had this domain name for years and we've had a number of different proposals about what we should do with it," McGillivray says. "What our realization has been in the past couple of years is that we want to merchandise our biggest asset, and our biggest asset is our members."

To execute on the strategy, it began with the launch of V.com's Agent Snapshot, a tool that allows member agents to showcase themselves and their travel experiences using a bio accompanied by a professional headshot. 

"It's an online tool to capture the essence of their brand as an agent, what their real specialties are and what their destination expertise is," explains Tiffany Glass, chief operating officer, noting how these bios will soon populate the new Vacation.com and be maximized from an SEO perspective.

She says the key is to have each bio "localized, personalized and inspired," tapping into what a potential client is seeking in a travel agent. 

In order to ensure members take advantage of the opportunity, V.com has simplified the process of creating a bio by offering a team of writers who will interview interested parties and assemble the write-up. Monthly training is also available to give agents direction on how to complete a profile while also honing in on the owner/manager's role in profile management, plus online guides can be accessed to get agents thinking about what goes into their bio and what content will be most relevant and unique in order to render a good match with the consumer.

There are currently 2,100 profiles in the works and more than 500 completed - 12 per cent of which are from the Canadian membership base.

"That inspiring bio and persona is what's going to help our SEO and have consumers find those inspiring travel agents," McGillivray says. "There's method to the madness - we want to make sure those messages are compelling, interesting personas of the agent."

Consumers can either go directly to Vacation.com to find a matching specialist, and investments are being made so that search engine queries will render results that drive new clients to the website. Based on the search terms, a collection of candidates will be posted, featuring a headshot, contact information and brief summary of strengths for each, and visitors can click in to see an expanded profile. From there, they can contact the advisor whom they feel is best suited for their travel inquiry.

"You're not coming here to look for a $499 cruise; you're coming here to partner up with a retailer who can guide your vacation and purchase experience,"  according to the CMO. "We don't sell travel, we sell travel agents."

Connecting agents & clients On Cue

Another initiative that is improving the agent's profile with their client is V.com's new On Cue. 

As an extra benefit to those participating in the company's Engagement Select program, On Cue enables members to select specialized, automated emails to be distributed to their clientele while also augmenting the personalized e-mails that are already a part of their agency’s client relationship and retention process. The automated e-mails are customized with the participating agency’s logo, location and e-mail address. Engagement Select agencies that opt-in to On Cue have access to the program for a rate of only $29 per month.

In addition, the automatic e-mails generated from On Cue acknowledge birthdays and anniversaries, welcome new clients to an agency, thank clients for referrals, request travel preferences, provide passport expiration reminders and much more, so busy agents don't miss out on important types of client communications.

"Bullish" outlook

Overall, V.com executives remain optimistic about the growth of leisure travel in the coming year. 

The consortium is seeing year-over-year growth in passenger volume as it relates to the premium cruise sector, and early reports show strong bookings for escorted tours and a robust start to cruising’s Wave Season.

In fact, Vacation.com members report that European river cruising is the top up-and-coming destination among their luxury clientele. 

In a recent survey conducted across a large cross-section of Vacation.com’s Canadian membership, 95 per cent of members said their 2015 bookings are on par or greater than the same time last year, and 99 per cent said they expect their clients will spend the same or more on travel in 2015 as compared to last year. In addition, 100 per cent of Vacation.com's Canadian membership expressed that their personal outlook was optimistic about their business for 2015. 

The Caribbean continues to remain at the top of V.com's international destinations. In addition, like the cruise segment, the consortium turned the year in a very solid position with regard to escorted tours and are projecting solid 10 to 12 per cent revenue growth across all of supplier partners. 

Europe, in particular Italy, also remains very strong for the network, while "excellent" sales trends are developing in some of the more exotic regions like China, Australia and Vietnam.