Luxury travel is a niche that many travel agents aspire to sell but never manage to make inroads into. It’s not easy, say executives with Travel Experts Inc.
For more than 23 years, Susan Ferrell has operated the company (www.travel-xperts.com), which she founded as a host agency before the concept was widely known. From the start, luxury travel was the focus.
“Back then, independent contractors were unique, and the concept required a lot of explanation,” Ferrell said. “It was slow going for the first five or six years, and then things took off. Now, every agency in the country has some independent contractors.”
Travel Experts, one of Virtuoso’s top agencies, has 200 independent travel agents and about a dozen employees who provide support. Agents who are vetted to join the company typically have proven track records in selling luxury travel. Ferrell said that they’ve often built solid relationships with their clients over many years, a key ingredient to success in selling travel to the affluent.
“I don’t have many tips, but the one that comes to mind immediately is that luxury travel is a relationship business,” she said. “We have one agent who plays golf every day. She meets people. They get to know her and trust her. So they start as golf partners and then become clients. It’s all about relationships and trust.”
Sharon Fake, Travel Experts’ director of operations, said that the closeness of luxury travel agents with their clients often is a result of years of service. “These are agents who are more than just business partners. They may know their clients’ children and grandchildren. They are a trusted family adviser.”
Compensation is sometimes different. Affluent travelers often demand a high level of service that is akin to being on call 24 hours a day. As a result, a few of the Travel Experts agents work on a retainer for their clients; one Travel Experts agent works on retainer for 15 clients.
“It’s a 24-hour-a-day kind of work,” Fake said. “Successful people are used to having people on call. Somebody has to be available at all times. If they land in a foreign country and the limo service isn’t waiting, you have to be available to get to the right people. Our folks also travel a lot. They have to do that to keep up their knowledge. That’s what their clients expect. They have to commit full tilt to this business.”
Travel Experts, which is the No. 2 agency in the Virtuoso network in supplier sales, ensures that its agents stay on top of supplier news with weekly webinars broadcast from its Raleigh, N.C., headquarters and industry news updates via intranet.
About three-fourths of the company’s 200 agents work from home, the rest rent office space at locations through the U.S., including 15 who are independent contractors and rent space in the Raleigh office.
The challenges are many, say Fake and Ferrell. One is the relationship with suppliers, which has changed over the years with the emergence of the Internet and new distribution channels, such as the many luxury travel discount sites.
“There used to be a strong partnership between agents and suppliers because we were the main distribution channel,” Fake said. “But now we are constantly struggling with our customers who are finding better pricing through other channels and are asking why we can’t do that for them. But agents have to sell their long-term value and consider walking away if a client is only looking at getting the lowest price all the time.”
Fake said social media is also a challenge. “We need to become active in social media. Sometimes that’s not our inclination, because we are focused on more personal communication. The younger folks are savvy with it. But 64% of luxury travelers are on Facebook, and that’s a large percentage. They are talking to their family and friends there, and that’s where we need to be, too.”
The rewards of selling luxury travel are many, even with the challenges. “We find it so gratifying to put together a trip for a client that’s magical,” Ferrell said. “We’ve got clients who go to remove places and explore, and they come back and tell us it’s changed their lives.”
Under Travel Experts’ independent contractor program, agents retain 100% of their commissions earned and pay a flat $550 per month fee to participate, regardless of their sales volume. The flat fee is set at a rate that makes it “negligible if you’re a top producer and cost-prohibitive if you are a low-volume producer,” Ferrell said. The structure seems to work to attract high-caliber agents focused on luxury travel, she said.
For more information, email Farrell at [email protected].
This article has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Susan Ferrell's name and also the correct email address.