“We realized there was a significant number of agents that our program didn’t cater to – experienced agents that weren’t ready to commit to the 100% commission plan,” acknowledges Stephanie Lee, Director of Operations & Marketing. “For the past 4 years, we’ve built a strong, lasting foundation for our host agency program and now we’re excited to start expanding.”

Dubbed the TQ90, agents joining the new plan will have access into the same programs and service offered to all Travel Quest agents and will receive 90% commission on all bookings, including service fees. Highlights of Travel Quest’s agent plans include Stream— a pre-paid hotel program that pays 12% commission, top tier commissions, and access to Travel Leaders’ direct mail marketing program.

The host agency also launched a lower rate for the TQ100 plan. This enhancement allows travel agents to receive 100% of their commissions for $199.99/month, saving agents $85/month, said Lee. Travel Quest agents previously on the 100% plan without GDS access will be automatically dropped to the lower price of $199.99.

Why the drop in fees? “Previously we included GDS access into our 100% plan. Our new program allows agents to customize their plan to suit the needs of the agency, and for most agents, that means cost savings,” explained Lee.

Travel agents interested in learning more about Travel Quest’s enhanced hosting program can visit http://www.TQagents.com or call 800.357.HOST (4678).

Video Announcement:

Yes agents, Chris McGinnis, an editor on the San Francisco Chronicle’s blog, has put up a blog post and asked for travel agents to tell a little about their business.  After mentioning the benefits of using a travel agent in a recent article, McGinnis was flooded with inquiries asking for referrals.

In response, McGinnis has posted a new blog for travel agents to tell a little about themselves.  He’ll then refer his inquiries to that blog post to find an agent.

Here’s the fun part.  As of now, there are only 8 comments!  So… go in there and tell a little about yourself and plug your agency!  It takes just a few minutes to put up a well written comment and you could get plenty of leads from it!

WARNING: This may not be for everyone.  You don’t have to necessarily be local, but be honest about what you can and can’t do.  The bottom line is the readers will most likely be people that have never used a travel agent before and want to try one out.  They’re active online and if we do well, they’ll sing praises for us online.  If we tout being experts on things we’re not just to get a lead, we’ll have posts letting the world know exactly that.

A few hints:

• Make sure to address the following in your comment:
  • Your first name
  • Your email
  • Your company or agency name
  • Your specialty (if any)
  • A line or two about why using YOU is a smart idea
  • Your standard fee
• There is nothing wrong with a short comment.  I would even argue the shorter comments are more successful since they’re easy to read.  Blog readers aren’t know for their long attention spans (are you still with me?).
• Don’t forget to upload a picture of yourself to stand out!
  • Post your comment> Click on your faceless photo> Upload photo (will be pending)
• Put a link back to your website so they can check you out.
  • Don’t forget the http:// in front or your website so they can click directly on the link to see your site.

Good luck, God Speed, and Happy Gobble, Gobble Day!

I’ve spent many a late night creating a Twitter list of travel agents to help create a community.  To date, we’ve found 728 agents on Twitter and we’d love to connect all of them!  If you’re interested in connecting with other travel agents on Twitter, do the following:

1. Follow our Tweeting Agent lists on Twitter.

• Tweeting Travel Agents List #1
• Tweeting Travel Agents List #2

2. Subscribe to the Tweeting Travel Agents paper.

3. Sign up for Twilert to keep up with any #TwTAs tweets.  Sent right to your inbox.

4. Use the hashtag #TwTAs to converse with other travel agents on Twitter or share articles relevant to travel agents.

Not listed on our Tweeting Travel Agents list?  Send us a tweet (@travel_quest) and we’ll add you.  Happy tweeting!

What you need to do:

1.  Find your nearest Park ‘N Fly location.

Source: http://www.pnf.com/Locations_w_Flash.aspx

2.  Get ready for your trip, making sure to pack your business cards and IATA card.

3.  Go on trip (yay!).

4.  When exiting Park ‘N Fly, show ALL of the following to the booth attendant:

• IATA or CLIA card
• Picture ID
• Business card with your agency name on it

5.  Now that you’ve used the service, you can hopefully recommend the service to your clients and explain it with ease.

For your frequent travelers, don’t forget to look into Park ‘N Fly’s Corporate Advantage Program for faster exit, free days of parking, and more.

Please note that the 50% discount is a space available only rate and cannot be pre-booked/reserved.  The 50% travel agent discount at Park ‘N Fly is not applicable to network affiliate locations.

So how do you go about getting your $100 in Free Facebook Ads?    Easy.

1.  Visit Facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday and click on “Get Free Ads”.

Please note: You must have a Facebook Business Page before you can get the free ads.  To learn more on how to setup your Facebook business page, watch our webinar Facebook Marketing 101 in Travel Agent University.

You’ll need to click on another “Get Free Ads” button to reach Step 2.

2.  Give permission for Small Business Saturday app to access your information.

3.  Create your Ad!

There are a few catches.  Most important is that this is first come, first serve so jump on right now and get ‘er done.   If you’re a franchisee, national chain, or government agency… you’re out of luck.  Take a look at the Terms of Participation (on the Facebook landing page under Get Free Ads button) for a more detailed list.

The Facebook Ads will start running November 7th, 2011 until November 18th or whenever the $100 credit has been reached.  Your ad will show to consumers over 21 that are located within a 10-mile radius of your business.

Beyond the Free Facebook Ads: Free $25 for Your Customers!

While American Express hasn’t launched their registration link yet, Amex card members that register and spend $25 at a participating small business will get a $25 credit on their statement.  Keep an eye out in November for more details because just like the Facebook Ads, it’s first come, first serve!

To start, realize the Facebook news feed is the editorial gatekeeper.  If your post isn’t showing up on users’ news feeds, it’s the equivalent of the receptionist telling you they’ve taken a message and will- ahem- pass it along.  It’s not going anywhere.  Good news is, your EdgeRank score varies by person and post– just because your post doesn’t show up in one user’s news feed doesn’t mean it isn’t showing up on other news feeds.

How EdgeRank Works

What’s the secret?  Common sense really.  The more the user seems to like you, the more your posts show in their feed.  For all you mathematical geeks out there, the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm is below.

EdgeRank Algorithm

For those that get flashbacks of sororities and frats when they see a large Episilon,  we’ll break it down into non-Greek-Speak.  EdgeRank looks at 3 main things when deciding EdgeRank:

1) (u_e) = Affinity  

How often do you and the user interact? The more interaction Facebook sees going on, the higher score they give your relationship.

2) (w_e) = Weight

Facebook is looking at how strong those interactions you had with the user were.  Did they comment, like, or post on your page?  While Facebook doesn’t tell which interaction they give more weight to, one can probably guess a comment has more weight than a like.

3) (d_e) = Time Decay

How long ago did you post?  Tick, tock. No matter how relevant your post to the user, the longer it’s been up, the less and less appealing it is to EdgeRank.

‘Top News’ vs. ‘Most Recent’ News Feeds

There are two different news feed choices- ‘Top News’ and ‘Most Recent’.  Much like Google with their PageRank, Facebook is pretty secretive about how they decide what shows up in your ‘Top News’ vs. ‘Most Recent’.

Most of your fans news feeds will be defaulted to ‘Top News’, which relies heavily on EdgeRank to decide what posts are shown.  The ‘Most Recent’ option is more chronologically focused.

Of course, it’d be too easy for the ‘Most Recent’ news feed to always be chronological so here’s the exception that Facebook openly notes.  For people that have more than 250 friends and pages they like, Facebook shows updates from ‘as many as 250 friends and Facebook Pages’.  Showing all your friends and page updates is an option but it must be manually done by scrolling to the bottom of your ‘Most Recent’ news feed and selecting to show posts from all of your friends and pages.

Truly Chronological Facebook News Feed

How do I make my Facebook Posts be Seen?

A couple tried and true methods will get you well on your way.  Beware, if you (or your page) is new to Facebook, it does take some serious work (and a few good power friends always helps) to help you build up your EdgeRank.  The Daily Beast has a great article that, among other things, addresses some of the challenges of being new to Facebook and gives some helpful tips.

So, what can you do to raise your EdgeRank?

Respond back
The more interactions, the higher your affinity score.  When users comment on your posts, drop a note back.  When they comment they love your picture, comment back. 

Timing is Important
You’ll hear a lot of statistics on when the ‘best’ time to post is.  Here’s my advice.  No one knows your audience better than you so experiment and see when they’re most active.  For our B2B page, I’ve found posting in the late afternoon gives the greatest number of responses and Fridays are like posting to an empty room so don’t even bother.  Getting your timing right when it comes to post will help your time decay score.

Don’t forget the links, pictures, videos
Posting only status updates gets boring.  Make sure to use polls, post up pictures and videos, link to your blog, and ask for user generated content to keep things fresh and appealing to a wide variety of audiences.

Post frequently, by not too frequently
You want your audience engaged and clicking on your posts.  Too many posts, you’ll be considered spam.  Too few posts, your audience never sees you.  Social media scientist Dan Zarella recommends posting every other day for maximum engagement.

Measuring your EdgeRank

As of now, there is no Facebook endorsed way to measure EdgeRank that I can find.  You may stumble across a site called EdgeRank Checker.  Problem is, it’s not entirely clear where they’re getting their score or what is done with the Facebook Insight information you upload.  For more in-depth reading on the pros/cons of the EdgeRank Checker, read Mari Smith’s article.
If you’re new to Facebook want to learn more about Facebook Marketing, check out our Facebook Marketing 101 webinar.

A FAM trip is an industry-wide term meaning “familiarization trip”.  Many suppliers host FAM trips for travel agents to different vacation hotspots. The goal?  Boost an agents’ knowledge and increase business for both parties.

What happens on a FAM trip?
There is no such thing as a typical FAM trip.  Some are simply ‘buy-in’ FAMs where it’s essentially a discounted vacation for agents.  There may or may not be a site inspection which varies drastically from ‘working’ FAMs where you may be going from 7:30am until 11pm with site inspections, hosted lunches and dinners, and trainings.   As you can imagine, buy-in FAMs are typically more expensive than the working FAMs.

Where to find a reputable FAM trip?
FAM trips can be found in industry newspapers, through your agency/host agency, vendor sites, or a simple google search will pull up a myriad of sites.  Be warned that many sites require you to pay to access FAM listings that are listed free elsewhere.  You’re paying for the convenience of them compiling the information for you.

What to do with clients when you’re on a FAM trip?
Today, many travel agents are independent contractors working from home.  As a result, taking a FAM trip may mean losing potential clients.  However, by participating in a travel agent FAM trip, think of your travel as an investment to boost business in the future.

One of the easiest ways to handle this situation is find a travel agent you trust and do a ‘vacation swap’.  When you’re out, they take care of your clients and vice versa.  If you’re home-based, it can be difficult to find other agents that you trust but the key is to network.  Attending travel industry trainings in your area, FAM trips, tradeshows, etc. are great places to meet other travel agents.  Chances are, you’ll see the same faces and your new colleagues will not only be vacation swap buddies, but also people to throw ideas around with.

What are the requirements for a FAM trip?
Typically a vendor will require an IATAN card or a CLIA card in order to attend a FAM trip.

On buy-in FAMs, guests may be included.  For nearly all working FAMs, guests are not allowed.   Honestly speaking, your guest, unless they’re a travel agent, would probably be miserable with the travel industry talk and busy schedule — they really just want to relax or explore!

I know there are so many amazing stories out there from agents that have attended FAM trips. Does anyone have a story that can be shared with us?

I believe blogs focusing on travel should involve a little more than listing the dos and don’ts of the industry. In a new recurring series titled “Travel Talk,” I will write about true cases that travel agents have faced. For the first article, I sat down with Angie from Minnesota and discussed the story of an insurance claim not paid in full.

In late December 2010, Angie had a client come in and book a Mediterranean cruise for her family. About a month later, travel insurance was purchased. Travel protector classic comprehensive was the name of the package purchased; this was considered to be a “gold” plan, covering both incidents before and during the trip.

February 16 (2 months after trip was purchased)– The father of the family was diagnosed with cancer. At that time, tests were still being run and the doctor made no clear recommendation on whether or not to go on the cruise. A week after the diagnosis, the daughter (who originally made the reservation) called and informed Angie of the situation but did not cancel at that time. Angie advised her client that only immediate family of the father can cancel the trip for this reason.

March 4 (2 weeks later) — Within a couple of weeks, the father needed to have extensive chemotherapy. One day later, the daughter called Angie to inform her they would be cancelling the vacation. That same day, the daughter called the insurance company to inform them they were cancelling the cruise. The insurance provider mailed out claim forms for the family to fill out.

April 3 (1 month later)– The insurance provider advised the family they would not be paying the full amount of the claim. Continuing, they stated the reason as being “failure to cancel within 72 hours of diagnosis.” Instead of issuing a full refund for the “medical” cancel policy, the insurance was paying an abbreviated amount for cancelling within a month of travel.

After reviewing the policy that was issued, Angie goes on to quote the following from the section labeled Your trip is cancelled or interrupted:

“You need to contact your travel suppliers within 72 hours of cancelling or interrupting your trip to qualify…If you are seriously ill or injured, contact your travel suppliers as soon as you can. A doctor must examine you or a traveling companion and advise to cancel before actual cancellation.”

The dispute in this case is the date the father was advised not to travel. The family took that date to be March 4, when the father began extensive chemo and it was clear they could not attend the cruise. On the other side, the insurance company took that date to be February 16, when the father was first diagnosed with cancer.

So far, the insurance company has refunded $900 of the total cost of the trip, $2,000. Angie is currently working with the customer to file an appeal in an attempt to collect the remaining $1,300. The appeal is still pending.

Has anyone else out there experienced difficulties with a travel insurance provider?

Either way, there are many reasons to put your faith back in the industry that has treated its clients so well in the past. The travel industry has gone online and home-based; for the agents that have adapted, this has rewarded them greatly.

Agency revenues increased from 2009 to 2010. The biggest profit increase was with the top tier agencies ($79M or more in sales per year). Smallest tier agencies ($3M or less in sales per year) recorded an increase in profit of 46%. Bottom-line revenues were up from the 2009 levels across all agencies. The smallest tier agencies recorded an revenue increase of 6%, while the largest tier agencies recorded an increase of 11%.

Agency owner revenues, or bottom-line profit, increased overall from 2009 to 2010. The largest increase in profit came from the smallest tier agencies at 23%. The average increase in owner profits from all agencies was 15%.

**PBOT: profit before owner takeout

There is little argument that in 2010, travel agents and the industry took the steps needed to adjust to the economic challenge. Even more impressive, travel agents adjusted their business model to adapt with the ever-changing virtual world. Overall, the industry has shown great resilience. Agency personnel, revenue, and profits have all increased from 2009 to 2010. Here’s to hoping this trend continues in the years to come!

Source:
Joselyn, R. (2011, April 6). By the numbers. Travel Research Online. Retrieved from http://www.travelresearchonline.com/blog/

Quest and Europe Express are giving away a trip to Italy for one lucky travel agent this week! So what do you have to do? It’s pretty simple.

Presented by Travel Quest and Europe Express

1. ‘Like’ Travel Quest on Facebook
2. ‘Like’ Europe Express on Facebook
3. Watch the video below to learn more about Europe Express
4. Visit Europe Express’ Facebook page and answer the questions they’ve posted on May 4th and May 5th about the video below!

Prize details

Europe Express 6-nt FAM trip to Italy in October + $350 Delta air stipend.  Includes: rail to/from Rome/Florence, hotel accommodations, breakfast daily, 5 dinners, 4 lunches, and airport transfers

Contest Rules

To be eligible to enter, participants must be a travel agent and ‘like’ Travel Quest‘s and Europe Express‘ Facebook pages.   In addition to being a fan of both Facebook pages, participants must answer 2 questions posted on Europe Express’ Facebook page about the video above on May 4th and 5th.  Winner will be announced Monday, May 9th.  The $350 airfare stipend is for Delta flights booked through Europe Express.