Advertising Tours? Software Overwhelm! Accessible Luxury?

This week for the Friday 15, Shayna co-hosts with Lori Speers of Levarte Travel! This week we’ve got a bunch of great questions to discuss this Friday at 12 pm CST. Join us! 

1. When I'm a vendor at festivals a few times a year advertising my travel agency, booth visitors repeatedly ask what tours are available besides the flyers I have on the table that show guided trips of a particular country with prices. I always have to stress to them that I can design a customized trip or a FIT and that we are travel advisors. At that point they have a confused look on their face and don't realize that we can do that besides booking a fully guided tour.  What would you recommend so that they understand more clearly my services to them as a travel advisor? Should I remove the flyers that show guided trips? Should I place a flyer plainly in sight with bullet points what I can do for them? - Marc

1. Now that I've been in business for over 5 years, I am buried in data! I was checking out your travel agency software recommendations but am quite overwhelmed. The type of travel booking I do is not for leisure, I actually book for disaster relief. We are a 24-7 travel management company and we book on very short notice as well as very high volume.
2. I need a software where I can store all of my bookings and can easily enter guests information quickly. I need to be able to track each specific event, room rate, savings, no shows, cancellations, etc. I would also like to be able to check inventory levels for multiple hotels. There I times I get requests for 20-100 rooms and I have to call each hotel to check availability. I'm not sure if GDS access allows me to view inventory on a wider scale.
3. I've been running my business day by day as work comes and now it's time to really get organized and spend on tools that will help me work smarter not harder.

1. I'm considering focusing on Luxury, Family, and Accessible Travel and I was thinking of positioning myself as: "Luxury & Accessible Travel for Families and Beyond.” Before I move forward with that, I wanted to get some feedback. Does that phrasing make sense, or does it feel like too much? I'm open to refining it.

To give a bit of background:

1. We work with Virtuoso which has opened the door to the world of luxury travel for me. I'm constantly inspired by the potential to create exceptional, once-in-a-lifetime experiences I absolutely love it!
2. I've always planned travel for my own family, which is what inspired me to join the industry.
3. I also have personal experience with accessibility needs my son has sensory sensitivities, and I have family members who use wheelchairs so accessible travel is a cause close to my heart.
4. Do you think it's okay to market myself across these three areas, or would it be better to focus on just one? - Cassie

RESOURCES:

➡️We have a great blog piece on ‘What do travel advisors do?’ which outline many advisor privileges that aren’t available to the public - this could be very helpful to you - https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/what-do-travel-agents-do

➡️ Definitely worth going to check-out our Travel Technology Directories - https://hostagencyreviews.com/travel-agency-software

➡️ We have an article on Tips for Choosing your Travel Agency Name - https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/travel-agency-names

➡️Tech Week! Registration is open for HAR*Wired! | Host Agency Reviews: https://hostagencyreviews.com/page/tech-week

➡️Call for Host Week Speakers - https://hostagencyreviews.com/page/speakers