When Vic Sarkisyan founded his Glendale, Calif., travel agency in 1994, he figured he had to do something other agencies were not doing. He settled on cable TV as his communications medium.
Over the years, SVH Tours and Travel evolved its use of TV into a routine. Sarkisyan, the president, travels to the destinations he wants to sell, sampling specific products and visiting hotels, his trusty video camera in hand.
He shoots hours of footage and uses that material to create weekly, 30-minute TV segments -- the "SVH Travel Show" -- which can be aired in full or in two 15-minute segments. For some channels, he uses 10-minute versions.
The content, he said, includes just about everything he thinks a customer should see, including shots of the standard hotel rooms or standard cruise cabins rather than the pricier options that a supplier might choose for a brochure, he said.
The 30-minute segments include price specials that his agency can offer for the featured product, he said.
Sarkisyan tracks the number of calls each show produces. "People call me right away after an ad. That's how I know it works." On the other hand, if a segment produces only one call, "it's not the right ad at the right time; I will change the show," he said.
The travel agency's ad segments appear in their 10-, 15- and 30-minute versions on at least nine cable channels, most of which are seen only locally, in Southern California, but they also appear on one channel that is available nationwide.
He also said he has tried newspaper advertising, but that produced "almost nothing," whereas cable is responsible for almost all the agency's business, he reported.
The agency, so far, doesn't advertise on the Web but may do so by the end of the year, Sarkisyan said.
SVH is an ARC agency and Vacation.com member with six staff and selling $20 million a year in travel, about 80% of that leisure and the remainder corporate.
Sarkisyan said SVH is a top producer for Apple Vacations, Globus and river cruises.
His TV segments advise viewers of company websites (www.pleasantvacation.com, www.applespecials.com) where travelers can book the agency's advertised specials and for some preferred suppliers. He said the sites generate an average of one booking per day.
Sarkisyan didn't take up the video camera because of a background in photography or filmmaking. He trained to be an electrical engineer in his homeland, Armenia.
He came to the U.S. in 1992 and embarked on a career change. "I figured I would enjoy the travel business, selling something people will enjoy," he said. "People call to say thanks, and I like the business for that."
Marc My Words
The power of preconceptions
By Marc Mancini
Years ago, I had the good fortune to hear the legendary Zig Ziglar deliver a keynote presentation. A skilled presenter, he mesmerized his audience with personal stories, folksy anecdotes, catchy aphorisms and, above all, his passionate conviction that anyone can become a master at closing the sale.
I then looked down at my writing pad. Absolutely nothing. No notes. Zilch. But that was OK, because I knew Ziglar was giving a keynote presentation.
A keynote speaker's job is to motivate, to set a tone, to amuse. That he had done, and superbly. His presentation fit my preconception of what a keynoter should do.
So what does this have to do with you?
A few months ago, Travel Weekly asked me to keynote one of its virtual conferences. I wasn't so sure my new keynote speech would work as a webinar. I had built it on Letterman-like, travel-related top 10 lists. In front of live audiences it had worked well. But what about a webinar presentation?
The good news: It worked as a webinar. The feedback was great. Well, not all of it. The chat that took place after my presentation was another matter. Several chat participants were disappointed with my presentation's lack of depth. Others said I was too vague. I had my defenders, but the overall conclusion: This was definitely a subpar Mancini performance.
I felt badly about it. But then it hit me: They may have been unaware that I was giving a keynote presentation. They expected my usual, practical seminar.
These two stories illustrate how preconceptions can alter the way you perceive something. Presentations and travel counseling are both vulnerable to the attitudes, good or bad, that members of the "audience" bring with them.
So before going too deeply into your clients' vacation plans, identify what their preconceptions are regarding key elements of their trip. If they're correct, no problem. If they're wrong, you must set them straight before going too far into the sales process.
Let's look at five industry categories and how preconceptions affect them:
Lodging: The most common preconception is that hotel ratings are consistent and reliable. Typically heard: "But isn't this a five-star hotel?" Well, that depends on who awarded the stars. It might be the hotel itself, and how can you trust that? Tell your client that the most reliable rating systems are those of Star Service, AAA and the Canadian Automobile Association. If it's an international property, the ratings may come from the government. These are generally reliable.
Cruise lines: Eighty-five percent of North American travelers have never cruised, and the reason is usually tied to some sort of preconception about cruising. Won't it be boring? Isn't it expensive? Isn't everything regimented? CLIA provides an excellent set of responses to dozens of these preconceptions.
Airlines: Many clients have preconceptions rooted in the old days of air travel: fairly good legroom, meals, free baggage check-in. Well, it's time to prepare your clients to the realities of 2009 ...
Tour operators: The most common preconception is that tours are 8 a.m.-to-10 p.m. experiences in regimented superficiality. Wrong. Many tours today are flexible, in-depth explorations of a place, with plenty of free time and unrushed sightseeing.
Car rentals: Again, your clients may have preconceptions tied to times long gone. Today, rental cars often are high-mileage (but well-maintained) vehicles. Despite their aging fleets, car rental firms are charging more. The day of cheap car rentals, in most places, is long gone.
One final thought. A new, formidable source of preconceptions has appeared in recent years: blogs, opinion sites and similar technologies. If your client cites these sources, you may have to explain that:
People complain more than they praise, by as much as 10 to 1. If you visit an opinion site and all the reviews are negative, then you probably should steer clear of the supplier being discussed. However, if there are only a few complaints scattered among the positive comments, that should not be cause for alarm.
It's not uncommon for a supplier to ask staff to write highly positive, self-serving reviews of their own company. If these glowing reviews are posted within a few days of each other, beware.
Marc Mancini is a travel industry speaker, writer and consultant.
