3 ways to support our small business

We don’t have to tell you that travel has ground to a halt, right now. Most trips have canceled for the summer, and while people are starting to plan travel for the later part of the year, and into 2021, the runway for the travel industry to recover is longer than for other industries (forgive the pun).

You might not know this, but most of the time, your travel advisor doesn’t get paid commission until after their client completes travel. Yep. All of that canceling and re-booking that your travel advisor does, which is covered by our small retainer fee, doesn’t actually generate any additional revenue for the small business, or income for your professional travel advisor. It’s one of the reasons that we charge a fee—we do a lot of work for our clients, whether or not they travel. We do get paid a commission from the supplier our clients select for making the booking (at least, most of the time), but all of the other things we do—the research, the analysis of the policies, canceling and rebooking and trying to preserve the value of your trip, investing in technology so that you can have a slick itinerary that’s accessible on your mobile device—all of that—is covered by our small retainer fee, which usually is less than 1% of the total cost of your vacation!

Obviously, however, when the industry is facing challenges, those challenges land on our doorstep, too. We’ve been heartened to see the outpouring of support to small businesses in our communities—the locally-owned bars and restaurants that have seen their patrons rallying around their businesses, for example. But not all small, independent businesses are bars and restaurants—like ours, for example! So, if you’re looking for a way to support our small business, here are three ideas!

Purchase a gift certificate for a future trip!

If you know that you’ll be traveling once this is all over, you could pre-pay your professional services retainer to either Tom, David or Erin. Or, if you’re looking for a gift for someone who loves to travel, you can give them the gift of a professionally-planned trip. Maybe someone graduated from college recently, and they’ve had to defer that big graduation trip to next year—well, if you buy them a gift certificate for our professional services retainer and send them our way, we’ll get it all lined up, and we’ll take good care of them before, during and after their travels.

Let us re-book using your future travel credit!

Maybe you booked a cruise, a tour or a resort stay on your own, and when the trip had to cancel, you took advantage of a generous future travel credit offered by the travel supplier. Well, if you’re sitting on that credit, now’s a really good time to re-book. It might not seem intuitive that inventory is getting snapped up at a time when no one’s traveling. But, in fact, that’s exactly what’s happening! Think about it. If you were planning to go to Alaska this year, and now that’s not happening—everyone else who was going to Alaska has pushed their trip to 2021, which means you’re going to be competing with folks for your choice of stateroom on the dates that will work best for your family.

So, don’t sit on those credits—let us help you put them to the best possible use by navigating the ins-and-outs of the terms and conditions attached to the credits, and let us see whether we can use our professional relationships with our preferred providers to maximize the value of those credits. You may have booked it on your own to begin with, but now that you’re re-booking, let’s see whether we can access better pricing and added amenities for you! Nearly every cruise line, resort and tour operator is part of our network, so no matter what you’re re-booking, chances are good that we can work with the supplier to take good care of you.

Join the Bucket List Club!

When world-wide travel came to a screeching halt earlier this year, it suddenly became clear why there’s value in using a travel professional to plan your trips. Even though it’s easy to book things online on your own, it’s a lot more difficult to get those online travel sites to help you fix a problem. And, those difficulties can be even more challenging, when you’re planning a journey that’s off-the-beaten-path, or to an exotic destination.

That’s why we started the Bucket List Club. For those travelers who want to have the trip-of-a-lifetime several times during their lifetime, we’ve got a program to curate your bucket list travel. The membership comes with lots of exclusive perks for people who want to check things off of their list once we’re able to travel again, and if you join now, we can start lining up your adventures right away!

So, what say you? Want to give someone the gift of travel? Would you like to pre-pay the retainer on your next trip? Wondering how to use those future travel credits? Looking to be strategic about checking things off of your bucket list? Well, we can help you with all of that, and we’d be very grateful for your business. Just drop us a line, and let’s talk!