A travel agent is to run a series of podcasts to help agents market their businesses and specialise in niche markets.
Rob Burley owns Altitude Luxury Travel, which specialises in selling motor sports packages, but set up agent training company Niche Travel Brands during the first England lockdown.
The first of his series of Travel Business Marketing Made Simple podcasts is due to go live on November 12 and will appear on his company’s website nichetravelbrands.com as well as via podcast channels such as Spotify and iTunes.
More: Your Stories: Altitude Luxury Travel owner’s venture helps agents establish niche businesses
Each podcast will feature an interview with a company founder or director who has successfully run or marketed niche businesses.
They include Carole Savage, of Not In The Guidebooks, who also appeared on Dragon’s Den; Cathy Bartrop, of Travelguru.tv, a travel promotion and online video production specialist; Sheree Mitchell, of Immersa Global, a US boutique travel company specialising in food, wine and art experiences in Portugal; and Shalene Dudley, of Latitude Concierge Travels. Dudley is a former Walt Disney World imagineer who now owns her own destination wedding travel agency based in Toronto.
The first podcast, with Savage, covers why now is an ideal time to refocus a travel business and the importance of understanding what a company’s brand stands for and clients’ intentions.
Some of the topics in the second podcast, a week later with Bartrop, include why video content is critical for travel marketing and tips on how to create videos from trips, the do’s and don’ts and how to use videos to close a holiday sale.
Burley, who has also created a training webinar for agents and offers courses on marketing and specialist travel selling, said: “I want to inspire travel agents with niche markets they could go into. I have been trying to find people who have got inspirational stories to tell.”
Already 600 agents have signed up to watch Burley’s webinar on becoming a niche specialist and expanding business by using Google search advertising. Burley used Google AdWords to successfully get his own business off the ground a decade ago.
He has already launched a five-module training course, Travel Expert Accelerator, which includes video tutorials as step-by-step guides to help agents identify niche products and market them to the right customers.
More: Your Stories: Altitude Luxury Travel owner’s venture helps agents establish niche businesses
