However, I think it’s important that we keep this terrible event in perspective. Here is what I believe we know:

1.) The cause of the tragedy was a disastrous decision by the ship’s captain and nothing inherent in the way the entire cruise industry operates.

2.) The incident highlighted some gaps in Costa’s policies, procedures, and training, which I have no doubt will be addressed swiftly and thoroughly.

3.) While the tragedy will live forever in the hearts of those directly affected, the memory will fade quickly for the traveling public.

The news media, of course, concentrated on the negative, which is perfectly understandable. There was a lot of talk about how this would affect the cruise industry with the predictions tending toward the dire end of the spectrum. But I was pleased to note that when a news web site that serves my local area posted a poll that asked people if they would cruise again, the vast majority said they would.

To their credit, many news outlets pointed out that cruising is among the very safest modes of transportation.

Also, the recorded scolding administered to the ship’s captain by the Italian Coast Guard skipper served the very useful purpose of educating the public about how a ship’s captain should conduct himself, underlining just how much of an aberration this particular captain was.

So, no, this is not a death knell for the industry. Carnival, the owner of Costa, is a strong company with extensive resources and a deep
commitment to the future of the cruise industry. They will bounce back from this and bounce back strong.

In the short term, look for some bargains in the months to come as the skittish cancel bookings. Look on this as an opportunity, for that is exactly what it is. I just put a young couple of a Carnival cruise, their very first, and I smell a honeymoon cruise in the near future.

Keep positive. Keep selling. Keep succeeding.

They have brand recognition. They offer terrific support to their travel agent partners. There a fewer additional expenses to keep track of, making budgeting much easier. They offer a wide range of activities. They offer the traveler the reassurance that they know what they will be getting, no surprises. Most are located in the Caribbean, making things a little easier for the travel agent, since getting to know the islands of the Caribbean is a relatively simple, not to mention highly enjoyable task. The list goes on.

In fact, one of the students of The Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course specialized in selling Sandals, with a concentration on the honeymoon market. She became Sandals top producer and made a very nice living indeed.

But there are alternatives to the AI experience as I was reminded during a highly informative meeting with Cyndi Miller Aird hosted by my local OSSN chapter. Cindy is a marketing rep (a sort of BDM if you will) for a number of independent Carribbean resort properties that operate on an AP basis.

AP stands for American Plan and refers to a hotel pricing structure that  includes three meals a day. And since most of the resorts Cyndi represents also offer a wide range of recreational activities they are, in effect, all-inclusive resorts.

So what’s the difference and why bother taking notice?

As Cyndi explained to me, these properties are independently owned, often family owned, which means they are much more representative of the culture and ambiance of their home islands. It’s all to easy to move from all-inclusive resort to all-inclusive resort and get the idea that every island in the Caribbean is pretty much the same. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Each resort is different in ways that chain resorts never are. If variety is the spice of life, it is also the spice of the vacation experience, Cyndi
points out. Clients who have enjoyed the all-inclusive experience might welcome the opportunity to sample something a little different, a place that not all their friends have been to.

Some of these resorts also offer plans that include two meals a day instead of three or breakfast only, offering your clients greater flexibility.

Cyndi represents resorts on Antigua, Barbados, Belize, Canouan, Grenada, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St Maarten/St Martin, and St. Thomas, as well as
some properties in Spain.

On her web site, http://www.awresorts.com, you will find links to all the properties as well as a section of “News & Offers” that you can take
advantage of. Cyndi also assists travel agents with events like bridal shows and offers co-op radio and TV promotions. Become one of her travel agent partners and you might even be in line for a fam to scope out new properties!

Meeting folks like Cyndi is one of the major benefits of joining an association like the Outside Sales Support Network (OSSN) and getting active in your local chapter. You can download a discounted OSSN application here.

I suppose there are some circumstances – a trip offered by a supplier as a reward 
for outstanding production, for example – when you can afford to just relax, 
go with the flow, and just enjoy yourself. But even in that kind of setting there 
is still work to be done.

Here are just a few of the things an agent should be attempting to accomplish 
on a fam.

Most obviously, a fam is an opportunity to learn more about the supplier and 
the particular product or products being showcased on the fam. But agents 
should go beyond the brochure talk and once-over-lightly briefings. How big 
exactly are those staterooms? Is the layout convenient? is there enough 
closet space? Which are the best rooms in that resort (and don’t forget room 
numbers)? How long a walk to the main dining room, the pool, the beach, the 
gym? What is really cool about this feature and what is not? Which rooms 
should you definitely NOT book your clients into? The list is almost endless.

This kind of intelligence, often lumped under the heading “product knowledge” 
is valuable, but it becomes truly powerful when it is combined with your 
psychographic knowledge about your target clientele or, better yet, specific 
clients. You should constantly be asking yourself questions like “Will this appeal 
to my target market of young families?” or making mental notes like “These 
bungalows are exactly the sort of thing at appeals to Dr. Frobisher.”

Another goal of a fam should be to make contact with and develop relationships 
with supplier personnel that can be turned to your advantage down the road, 
when you need some information, face a tough sales challenge, or need the 
rules “bent” just a teeny bit. Always be sure to write thank you notes to the 
salespeople, BDMs, or on site personnel who have helped make your fam a 
success. Creating warm relationships is an underrated factor in travel agent 
success in my opinion.

Also, the “down time” spent with fellow agents, while great fun, is not just about 
mindless pleasure, hard drinking, or trading “war stories.” Most successful 
agents will tell you, if asked, that some of their best strategies were picked 
up from fellow agents. So don’t hesitate to ask “How did you do that?” when 
a colleague brags about some big booking.

Won’t your fellow agents be annoyed if you pepper them with questions about 
their methods and maybe even their “trade secrets”? Not at all. At the risk of 
sounding like Dale Carnegie’s ghost, one of the best ways to forge close 
relationships with people is to get them talking about themselves. And most 
experienced agents will be flattered to take a newer agent under their wing 
and answer questions over the phone – especially if that neophyte agent 
plies their trade in a distant state.

If you think about the topics I’ve touched on so briefly in the last several 
paragraphs, you should see that we are talking about a lot of work. And since 
most of this activity is investigative or reportorial, good note taking and record 
keeping is essential. On the many fams I have had the privilege of taking, 
I have consistently observed that the most obsessive note takers and question 
askers tend to be the most successful agents.

So if going on a fam means going to work, that ship or that resort becomes 
your workplace and, since you are a professional, you should conduct 
yourself in a professional manner. That much is pretty obvious to most agents, 
although you’ve no doubt encountered a few who seem to forget. But let 
me take this train of thought a step further.

I would like to suggest that – in a sense – you become an employee when 
you are participating in a fam. Yes, yes, I know that is not literally true, 
but let’s just pretend for now. You are no longer just any old agent, but an 
agent for this particular supplier. For the duration of the fam, you are working 
in that supplier’s place of business. That supplier is providing you with an 
experience of which they are proud, not to mention feeding you and 
occasionally plying you with drink. They have certain expectations of what 
you owe them in return, just as they do about their employees.

In the corporate world (and some home-based travel agents may have
transitioned from that world), companies can take a dim view of inappropriate 
behavior on the job and even what their employees do or say in their “off” hours. 
The same tends to be true of travel suppliers vis a vis agents on their fams.

Now in most cases, this is not an issue. Every sane travel agent knows enough 
not to brag to “regular people” they may encounter about how little they paid 
for their trip or to hand out business cards and try to poach business from other 
agents. Some agents, however, are not so careful about what they say in 
”private” or share online with “friends.” For better or worse, we live in an 
electronically interconnected world in which gazillionaire Mark Zuckerberg, of 
Facebook fame, can blithely say there is no such thing as privacy.

What this means is that what you say and do, during and after a fam, even 
among “friends,” can come back to bite you. All the more reason to think of 
yourself as an employee when you are on a fam, even if you know it’s really 
not true. All the more reason to stick to the highest standards of professional 
conduct.

I don’t know if there are any studies to back me up on this, but I’d be willing to 
bet that travel agents get more positive results from giving small, thoughtful
 gifts than they do by rebating (kicking back some of their commission in the hope
 of competing on price, which is never a good idea).

On a fam I took with OSSN a few months ago our group leader proved to be an 
expert in this ploy. I still remember how she swooped into a shop in Juneau (it
 was an Alaskan cruise) and, because ours was the last ship the port would see
t hat season, cut a deal to buy the entire remaining stock of dish towels. They
 were dirt cheap, but because they had an Alaskan motif they made excellent 
(and useful) gifts for her frequent cruisers while promoting Alaska as a
 destination!

My company, the same one that publishes the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course,
 also publishes a range of travel books, some of which are “naturals” for travel agents 
to use as promotional gifts, bon voyage presents, or holiday remembrances.

Hidden Mickeys: A Field Guide To Walt Disney World’s Best Kept Secrets is a good
 example. Many Disney-specialist travel agencies are now including the book with
 every Disney vacation package they book. Judging by the steady stream of reorders,
it’s proven to be popular.

Several other books, such as Travia: The Ultimate Book of Travel Trivia by former 
Travel Weekly editor Nadine Godwin, and The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were 
Beautiful, a hardback book of travel quotations illustrated with cartoons from the 
New Yorker, are not destination specific, but they make the kind of thoughtful gift 
for frequent travelers that can help travel agents build strong relationships with
 their best clients.

For the Boston Forum, we offered a very special deal for travel agents: For orders 
of 1 to 10 books in any combination, the price was $5 per book, plus 50 cents for 
media mail shipping. For orders of 11 books or more, the price dropped to $4 a 
book and shipping was free.

I decided to extend the same offer to the readers of the blog. You can 
download an order form in PDF format and fax or phone you order in.

I am repeating the news here because a good number of the emails we sent out “bounced.” That is, the email address we had on file was either bod or had changed.

The new version contains a complete overhaul and update of the Host Agency Directory, which contains information on over 300 hosts, all cross referenced by location, cost, commission rates, and other factors. There have also been important changes in the area of those “unique industry identifiers” that allow you to take the step of transitioning from travel agent to travel agency.

So if you failed to get the announcement because we don’t have your correct email address, you can access the latest versions of all seven modules by logging on here. Simply enter your user name and password. If you have forgotten your password or have other difficulties send an email to
orders – AT – intrepidtraveler DOTCOM and we will help you out.

From now on, I will announce subsequent updates on the site blog and in the newsletter so no one gets left out.

If you don’t receive the newsletter, pop your email address into the form to the right of this post.

If you don’t already have the course, you can get it here.

Here’s a challenge for all of you: Try to top this.

You see, while there is no admission fee and the memorial is open to all, access is being limited for security reasons and timed tickets are required. The demand has been so great that tickets need to be booked months in advance. So if your hapless clients show up, they will be turned away. Fortunately, you can help them. You might even be able to make some money while you’re at it.

There is a little known “trick” to getting tickets to the National September 11 Memorial, as Ground Zero is more formally known. Approximately ten percent of the tickets available each day are reserved for local tour companies, which can offer them to people who purchase one of their tours.

So the savvy travel agent’s best tactic is to sell the benefits of a hop-on-hop-off tour available from one of these companies. You still have to do some advanced planning — the demand for these tickets is such that tours offering them sell out weeks in advance. You must also be aware that tickets to the memorial are specific to a date and time, so you and your client must commit to an exact time schedule for their visit.

The best option seems to be New York Water Taxi, which offers a hop-on hop-off tour via New York’s waterways for $25. Travel agents can purchase tickets at a net rate of $20 and resell them to their clients. New York Water Taxi recommends making bookings at least two or three weeks in advance. Contact Diego Camacho at (646) 380-4247 or dcamacho@nywt.com.

Gray Line of New York also offers a hop-on hop-off tour, this one via bus, that includes tickets to the Memorial. However they only offer them to groups of 25 or more. They pay a 10% commission and all groups must be booked and fully paid for at least two weeks before the desired date of the visit. The group department can be reached at (212) 812-2709.

Of course, with enough lead time you can get free tickets for your clients through the Memorial’s online reservation system. When I checked, there was a single date available a month out and then nothing else for another month or so. No commission, obviously, but a nice gesture that your clients will truly appreciate. Keep this in mind the next time you are sending someone on a cruise departing from New York or Bayonne. This sort of thing is booked well in advance, so you should have no trouble fitting in a Ground Zero visit into your clients’ pre-cruise plans.

However, there are reasons some of your clients may be interested in sailing then. They may want to celebrate a birthday or anniversary or maybe they know that there are some great deals to be had at this time. Or perhaps this is simply the time they can get away from work or other obligations at home.

So don’t dismiss late-season Alaska out of hand. Remember, too, that there are some definite pluses to going at this time.

If you have clients who are ardent shoppers, the last trip of the season can offer some spectacular deals. Most shops in Alaska ports close up once the last ship has sailed for warmer climes and “Everything Must Go!” signs are everywhere. A savvy bargainer can increase the already large discounts without too much effort. And if you have cash in hand, you might even be able to know off an extra ten or twenty bucks.

Discounts and deals can crop up unexpectedly. On a recent sailing we stopped into Tracy’s Crab Shack in Juneau (the locals agree it’s the best spot in town)and because they were closing up for the season that day we got double portions of everything we ordered. What would have been a very expensive king crab leg feast became the best bargain of the trip.

True, the weather can be dicey in Alaska as it was on our trip, but ironically “bad” weather can work in your favor. Bears don’t mind a little rain and on one rain-soaked excursion we spotted five, including a mother teaching her two cubs how to negotiate trees over a swollen stream.

Best of all, a gale in the Gulf of Alaska rerouted our ship to Tracy Arm Fjord, one of Alaska’s true treasures. It was the first time the ship had visited here during the season and the crew were as excited as the passengers.

The weather can also cooperate. An unpromisingly rainy morning in Juneau turned into a delightful day, making a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier and, later, up the aerial tramway at the dock a real treat.

So the bottom line is: Don’t write off late-season Alaska. As always, be sure you know your client to avoid disappointments. Stress value and be honest about the trade offs and you’ll do just fine.

QR stands for “quick response” and as smart phones catch on in the United 
States (they’ve been around forever in Japan!) QR codes are becoming more 
and more common.

So how do they work and why should you, a travel agent, be interested?

Okay, 
let’s answer the first part of that question first. If you have a “smart” phone, a cell phone like an iPhone or one of the many
flavors of Android phone now flooding the market, you can download a free
”app” that will let your phone scan QR codes. I use QR Reader on my iPhone 
but there is also a version for the Android system.

Once the app is installed (it takes less than a minute), you can point the
 camera of your phone at a QR code and scan it. The reader app then decodes
 the information in the QR code and then does any of a number of things.

That’s the beauty of QR codes. Depending on how they are coded, they can 
do a number of different things. Most often, a QR code is used to send the
 person who has scanned it to a web page that they can view immediately 
on their smart phone. But a QR code can also be programmed to dial a
 number on the cell phone and put the user directly in touch with a merchant.
 Or it can load address and phone number information into the cell phone’s 
address book. Or do any of a number of cool things.

So why does this matter to travel agents?

QR codes are an extremely effective
 and low cost way to get your marketing message in front of potential clients.
 They are also undeniably “cool” and will quickly make you stand out in the
 crowd. Using QR codes is a great way to win share of mind with the 
technologically sophisticated client

Here are a just few ways that travel agents can use QR codes:

** Say you’re participating at a bridal show. Place a sign on your table with a 
QR code prominently displayed and harried brides-to-be can scan it a have
 your marketing message saved for future reference. I picked bridal shows
 for this example, because the target market here is almost by definition
 made up of “early adopters” who have smart phones loaded with all sorts 
of nifty apps. But you could do this in all sorts of settings.

** Place a QR code on the back of your business card that will take people 
directly to your web site. Or that will load your “vCard” (a sort of electronic
 business card) into their smart phone.

** If you have a storefront location (and a surprising number of people
 using the strategies taught in the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course
 do), you can place a large QR code in your window that will take people
 to a web page promoting your latest cruise or other special offer. In fact,
you could have several QR codes posted there, each pointing to a
 different promotion.

** If you advertise (something I don’t generally recommend because of the
 traditionally low return on investment), then by all means include a QR code 
in the ad. This way, people who would never think of clipping your ad or
 writing down your phone number from a newspaper ad can scan it with
 their QR reader and capture your info.

** Once you understand the power of QR codes and learn how to create
 them (it’s absurdly easy to do and requires absolutely zero techie skills), 
you can make extra money by providing QR codes to others. Anyone you meet in a lead swapping club, to cite just one example, should instantly recognize the value of QR codes. Realtors are
 especially good prospects, since a QR code on a For Sale sign that takes
 people to a virtual house tour on the Web is powerful marketing.

In fact, I will confess that I was seriously considering offering customized
 QR codes as a service to travel agents at HomeTravelAgency.com, charging 
a small fee for each code generated and delivered.

Instead I decided to simply let you know how to do it yourself. It’s cheap, it’s 
easy and, even if you use it only for your own marketing, the ROI calculation 
is a no-brainer.

So let me introduce you to “QR Champ.” It’s a membership web site that
 gives you access to the “QR Code Creator Tool” that lets you create unlimited 
QR codes, in a bunch of different “flavors.”

You’ll also get a PDF report that will tell you exactly how you can set up a 
sideline business to profit from QR codes, if that’s something you’d be
 interested in doing. Even if you’re not interested in doing that, the discussion
 will give you some inspiration for how to use QR codes in your own travel
 marketing business.

Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/pdyaKt

Just a word of warning, the web site is geared to people who want to make 
money selling QR codes and services to others and the PDF is a bit 
on the hype-y side, but the information is solid. I’m having great fun playing 
around with QR codes and I think you will, too.

I emailed a potential host agency and they just emailed me back. They said that I had to be “bondable” and submit to a credit check.

I don’t own anything and I have bad credit. Does this preclude me from doing this at all? Is that the industry standard or just their rule?

Well, first of all, blindly emailing host agencies before you really understand the business is not the best strategy. Host agencies have their own agendas and their own interests which are not identical with yours. Once you have the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course, this will not be a problem; you will have a firm understanding of the wide array of different types of host agencies and how they differ as well as more than 300 host agencies to start investigating.

But is having bad credit really something that will get you “blacklisted” in the travel agent community?

Let me reassure you. No, you do not have to be “bondable” to be a home-based agent. And having “bad credit” (whatever that means) will not disqualify you.

Now some host agencies, such as the one you contacted, do ask for things like credit checks. Some make you swear that you’ve never been arrested. And then the run a complete background check to make sure you told the truth! Some require that you have “x” years of experience and can prove it. That is their right. They can choose with whom they want to do business and make prospective agents jump through whatever hoops they see fit.

It’s also worth remembering that home based agents have the same freedom to define their business, something I strongly endorse in the course. For starters, you can choose which host agency (or agencies) you’ll do business with and if you don’t like them it’s an easy matter to switch to another. You can also decide what kind of travel you sell, which means that you can specialize in certain things while completely ignoring others. The list goes on.

There’s good news for my questioner on the host agency front. The vast majority of host agencies don’t require invasive credit checks or background investigations. Most are willing to deal with complete beginners. And some of them don’t even charge a sign up fee.

The Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course includes as one of its seven modules, the Host Agency Directory which lists over 300 hosts in the US, Canada, and several foreign countries. Those agencies are cross-referenced by location, entry cost, commission splits and so forth. It also contains a “Shopper’s Checklist” that lets you ask the right questions to be certain that you enter into a business relationship with a host agency that is right for you.