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Planning Your Destination Wedding

Planning a wedding can be a very exciting part of your special day. More and more couples are choosing to have their ceremony at a location other than their hometown. Instead of letting this task become overwhelming, let it be fun and romantic.

After setting your wedding date, choosing your location should be your first step. Do you want an elegant event at a beautiful resort, or would you prefer a romantic and intimate celebration with just family and friends? Either way, you can have the wedding of your dreams.

Make a list of certain things that you must take care of before the big day. This list can include checking with a wedding coordinator from the area. She or he will have resources available to you to help with choosing a photographer, securing your marriage license, as well as checking with the local Chamber of Commerce or Visitors Center to see if there are certain requirements to have a wedding in their area. Remember as well that you will need someone to perform the ceremony. Some states allow a Notary Public to officiate, while other states require a minister that is licensed in the state that the wedding will be held. This would be another great question to ask when checking on local event requirements. Also, make sure that there are accommodations nearby for guests that may be traveling to your wedding.

Another point to remember is that a destination wedding does not have to be an expensive affair. There are very few backdrops as beautiful as nature provides.

Once the major decisions of when and where are taken care of, now the fun can begin! You can finally begin to build your theme around your venue. You may choose wedding favors to decorate your tables. If you are having a sunset beach wedding, you may want to choose nautical wedding favors for your guests to remember your special day. If you have a more elegant theme in mind, you might choose a beautiful picture frame for place card holders that can be used by your guest once they return home.

Close your eyes and picture the way you want your reception to look. Do you see linen-covered table and chairs with beautiful place card holders for your guests, or do you see a more relaxed casual atmosphere with a “toes in the sand” beach feel?

Remember that this is your wedding day. Make it everything you have ever dreamed of.

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Marketing For Travel Agents

Global Travel Industry

Globally the travel industry is worth over £100bn and this is growing as the developing world starts to travel more.

The UK however has seen a slow down in the travel sector due to the effects of the recession people are choosing to cut back on their holidays. In the boom times people were taking holidays 1-2 times per year, this has gone down to 1 or maybe none (a stay at home holiday or holiday in the UK). People do not have as much disposable income to spend as they once did, and as living costs are going up this is a trend that the travel industry is trying to adapt to.

Another factor that complicates things is that the cost of travel is going up, as fuel costs rise, food costs in hotels and wages in foreign countries rise the overall cost of cheap package holiday’s on average is higher now than 5 years ago.

The result is that consumers are more price orientated rather than destination orientated, opting for a cheap holiday in the sun anywhere rather than locations that make profit for the tour guide.

National Travel Industry

The UK is one of the most expensive places to holiday, with fuel costs, VAT, food costs, drinks and day excursions, many people still opt for overseas package holidays.

However, the UK is investing into themed holidays, similar to Butlins from the 1970’s spa breaks and resort holiday’s closer to home are becoming more popular with busy families that cannot take more than a week off together at a time. Resort holiday’s offer full activity facilities (such as golf, horse riding, childcare, tennis, swimming etc.) to families making the UK a alternative option to going abroad.

Competition In The Travel Industry

The holiday industry is notorious for competition, ranging from freelance travel agents, holiday websites and the traditional travel agent.

As more companies start up, the industry is only becoming more and more competitive causing companies to reduce their profit margins to meet sales figures.

Marketing For Holiday Companies

The internet is the primary tool that is used now as most people prefer looking at holiday destinations from the comfort of their home rather than going into town on a Saturday to go round the various holiday shops collecting brochures on the way.

With this in mind, most holiday companies use their websites (that now have good quality pictures of holiday destinations or multi media files) to attract customers using internet marketing, paid advertising (PPC) and social media channels.

TV advertising is still used in marketing for travel agents mainly to reinforce their brand name; however the web based companies (and freelancers) do opt for the internet.

Most holiday companies find that the traditional forms of marketing (such as TV advertising, magazine advertising) is quite expensive and only helps ‘sow the seed’ of a holiday – there is the danger that people will go to a competitor after seeing the advert. This is why the internet is more more efficient, as the advert/website will draw holiday makers onto the website and hopefully they will select and pay for their trip there and then within minutes.

One popular kind of marketing for travel businesses is ‘re-marketing’. This is where a travel business will continue to market their holiday’s to existing customers, in the hope that they will come back and re-book their next holiday (rather than shopping around or going elsewhere). Bringing on old holiday clients is much cheaper than bringing on new ones.

The key tool for any travel company is the website, in today’s world, a website is essential and 90% of holiday makers will view and book their holiday’s via a website. Coupled into internet advertising, SEO and paid advertising (PPC) the internet is the essential marketing tool for any travel company in 2012.

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4 Customer Centric Culture Building Blocks

It’s popular to tout customer-centricity, yet it’s very difficult to consistently demonstrate. The word centric means having a specific thing as the focus of attention and efforts. Customer-centric means that concerns other than the customer’s well-being are in the background while the customer stays in the foreground.

That may seem simple enough, yet reality proves the elusiveness of customer-centricity. In Accenture’s Delivering the Promise study, 75% of executives viewed their customer service as above-average, while 59% of their customers reported their experience with these companies’ service as somewhat to extremely dissatisfying. Likewise, in CMO Council’s Customer Affinity study, half the companies said they are extremely customer-centric, but only a tenth of their customers agreed.

The building blocks of customer-centric culture are communication, skills, accountability and systems.

1. Communication. The vision and values that top management communicates, both verbally and behaviorally, set the tone and direction. What top management focuses on guides the thinking and efforts of the entire organization. The key is consistency: at every opportunity, continually communicate the necessity of making it easier and nicer for customers to get and use solutions. Consistency occurs in formal and informal meetings, written correspondence, external messages, and in every business process and every management ritual such as performance reviews, annual operating plans, performance dashboards, etc. Consistency builds trust and passion, which are necessary ingredients for true customer-centricity.

At Amazon.com, founder Jeff Bezos once began a meeting by announcing that an empty chair at the table represented the customer. Throughout the meeting, the executives were compelled to include the customer in the discussion, as if present. This became a habit – the group’s way of thinking and doing.

2. Skills. Customer-centric values and vision must be supported by proficiency in related technical and soft skills. Examine competency requirements for everyone – not just customer-facing roles – relative to your customer-centric values and vision. This includes channel partners, suppliers, and other external entities. Proficiency is the vital link between strategy and execution.

At Nordstrom, employees are selected on their capabilities to anticipate and meet people’s needs. They’re encouraged to try new approaches to selling and customer service, with the mantra use good judgment in all situations giving them a tremendous sense that they’re trusted to always do right by the customer.

3. Accountability. What gets rewarded gets done – whether the rewards are tangible or intrinsic. Interestingly, intrinsic rewards have proven to be more powerful in adjusting a group’s ways of thinking and doing. Risk tolerance and penalties also determine the degree to which customer-centricity takes root. Above all, monitor cause-and-effect and also perceptions of fairness in terms of logic and equity; these elements are pivotal to success.

At Enterprise Rent-a-Car, customer sentiment is measured at the rental office level. Only employees in offices that score at or above the overall company average are eligible for promotion, raises or bonuses. At EMC, achieving the target for their leading indicator of customer sentiment, system availability, is a go/no-go determinant of the bonus for the entire company.

4. Systems. Systems-thinking means acknowledging the big picture and linkages between its components. Scrutinize your business policies and procedures and tools for their contribution or detraction from the goal of making it easier and nicer for customers to get and use solutions. Systems include formal and informal inter-department communication and interactions and handoffs, and connections outside the enterprise.

At Dell, SVP of customer service Dick Hunter asked employees to send him notes about the inconsistent and dumb things the company was doing. Combining this input with customer’s verbatim comments to their call center led to significant changes in the customer experience.

Motives are at the heart of true or false customer-centricity. Customer-centricity as priority number one must permeate the entire business, and be un-challenged by other concerns as the organization’s primary focus of attention and efforts. All other goals are more likely to fall into place with consistent customer-centricity.