As travel agents know, they aren’t always the first distribution channel for suppliers. Sometimes it takes awhile for tour operators to realize that by ignoring agents, they may be missing a chance to expand their business.
Fresh Tracks, which specializes in customized vacations across Canada, last year started reaching out to travel agents and is seeing its efforts pay off.
CEO John Parker said he believes that part of the reason for the payoff is a change in travel agents. “We’ve been around for 20 years and started thinking last year that it was a good time to build relationships with travel agents,” he said. “It seems that the travel agents that have survived are more professional. That’s why we decided it was time for us to reach out to them.”
For the first time this year, Fresh Tracks published a brochure specifically for agents to distribute to their clients. Parker said the old-fashioned approach of showing a glossy, color print brochure to clients works well for his company’s product: high-end Canadian vacations highlighting in beautiful, large photos the stunning scenery found across the country.
The brochure shows some of the luxury hotels Fresh Tracks offers, including the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and Le Place D’Armes in Montreal, and activities such as train travel, skiing, golf, horseback riding, dog-sledding, ziplining and whale-watching.
Of Fresh Tracks’ bookings, 15% now come from travel agents, up from 6% in 2010. Parker is so enthusiastic about agents that he is creating an agent training program, expected to be available in a few months. The goal, he said, is to show U.S. agents the wide variety of travel possibilities in their neighbor to the north.
“We’re a large country, and there’s no way for a typical travel agent in the U.S. to know Canada as well as we know Canada. We’re saying, give us a call and we’ll do the work for you,” he said. “We can deliver small things that really please clients, such as getting that better room with the best views.”
The company pays 10% commission plus overrides when agents produce higher volumes. Fresh Tracks also works with agents who have group business. One pre-packed group trip is “Canada in Bloom,” a five-day tour timed with Ottawa’s annual Tulip Festival when the capital is full of millions of blossoming spring flowers. The tour visits Toronto, Niagara-on-the-Lake and then travels by train to Ottawa.
See www.freshtrackscanada.com.