Even the most seasoned travel companies can have a hard time organizing a group without the right tools in place. It’s often a job that involves a couple of members of your team, and without proper systems in place to tie it all together, things can become a bit disjointed.
As a company that loves group travel, we thought we’d share a few tips with you, and point out some of the common travel company group trip organization mistakes to avoid. This way, you will know what to look out for when planning your own!
So, you have a brilliant Facebook page for your company and use it to advertise your latest group trip and drum up a bit of excitement among your followers.
But once you have some potentials on the hook, ready to find out more or even make a booking, does your website meet the same mark when they land on it? Are you able to give visitors the same experience they have just had on your social media page – one that is filled with amazing images delivered in a well thought out ad format?
Same goes for email marketing. Is your newsletter or flyer designed to stop people in their tracks and make them want to find out more about the trip? And once they take the next step, are they going to have a consistent experience at the next point they land on?
If the answer to those questions is no, then you could well lose their interest at this stage. Stats show that as many as 75% of people judge a business based on their website. Another study claims that 38% of people will stop engaging with a site if the content and layout are unattractive.
Basically, if the same experience is not met across your website, social media, email marketing, etc, you could potentially lose out on business.
Next on our list of group trip organization mistakes to avoid is not using images to highlight what your trip is all about.
Images are a great way to capture people’s attention. They encourage people to spend longer on your site or booking page, and they give a better idea of what it is travelers can expect if they go ahead and sign up for your group trip. The more they know about your product, the more comfortable they will be with taking the next step towards actually booking.
If you’re taking in online payments from your attendees, you need to provide an easy and secure way for them to do it.
Bank transfers are obviously a popular online payment method. But having to navigate away from a web page to log into a bank account and perform a transaction is disjointed.
Ultimately, it’s another point where you can potentially see a drop off in conversions. Not to mention the potential limitations for international group attendees living in countries with restrictions on foreign currency transactions.
Credit cards are another way to accept payments online, but not every travel company offers this option. This is because the transactional fees are high, and it can be a lengthy process signing up to the technology providers.
Another thing to consider is that attendees may want to add on extras to their group trip, such as insurance or airport transfers, as they go along. Being able to easily accept secure payments for the add ons provides a better user experience.
Ideally, you want to be able to accept online payments on the booking page itself. If at any point a person has to navigate away to process a transfer, you may well lose them altogether. You also need to avoid excessive bank fees which may deter them from booking.
Any travel company looking for group trip organization mistakes to avoid should be aware of how they reassure the outside world of their legitimacy and ability to organize an amazing experience.
A beautifully designed web page that is full of engaging photos and key information is one way to give people a sense of ease. Another is to provide reassurances about the security of your online payment methods, as well as protection of the information they leave with you.
Having these sorts of affirmations goes a lot further than simply organizing a group trip via email correspondence for example. There is something seemingly more permanent about a clean cut website or booking page driven by a knowledgeable team.
Without proper software or organizational processes to manage information as it comes in, you probably rely on a number of tools to keep on top of this.
The problem with using a number of tools is that information can be lost along the way. Important emails can be missed, figures copied incorrectly, and key information not collected on time. In the case of a group trip when you are planning for several people, they’re mistakes you can’t afford to make.
Ideally, your travel company needs some sort of booking software to help them manage all of this easily. Best would be something that automatically populates a database, and keeps track of certain organizational milestones that need to be observed
Obviously booking or even accounting software helps you to produce professional looking invoices, as well as keep track of customer receipts and supplier payments. Without this, it can be difficult to monitor who has paid, when they need to be prompted for the next installment, supplier transfers that need to go out, etc.
Last on our list of group trip organization mistakes to avoid is not collating data into one central, accessible place.
Especially true when there’s a team organizing various aspects of a group trip, having a central point where the individual members can access information that they need is important.
For example, sales may want to know if there is an opportunity to upsell a package to clients, while operations needs access to everyone’s specified dietary preferences so as to inform the lodge. However, operations has to wait for sales to confirm which package the client has selected.
Managing this sort of information from a central point helps organization run a lot smoother.
The truth is, there is a single solution which can help your travel company to easily organize a group trip, and it’s WeTravel! Get in touch today to find out more about how you can manage bookings and collect payments seamlessly through our innovative platform.
