North Country Travel Trade Activation
Develop the skills needed to grow your international and group travel business
Akwesasne Travel, The Wild Center, and the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) invite our tourism partners to join us for three FREE travel trade activation sessions.
What is Travel Trade?
Travel Trade generally refers to a company that sells to consumers and/or travel agents that make reservations and itineraries on behalf of the traveler. It includes online travel agents, receptive tour operators, wholesalers, travel agents, etc. They typically work with international travelers and have intimate knowledge of the travelers’ interests and motivations to travel.
Partnering with the travel trade is a cost-effective way for your business to reach group tours and international visitors. Through these partnerships, you will expand your sales force and spread your marketing message across the globe!
About the Travel Trade Activations
The activation sessions will provide you with the opportunity to grow your tourism business via long-term business partners, and business-to-business (B2B) resellers of travel (travel trade). In addition to receiving and creating resources to assist in maximizing your tourism marketing efforts, you will participate in a buyer panel workshop during the last session where you can begin activating your travel trade working relationships!
The Sessions will be led by ALON Tourism Solutions. Jennifer Ackerson from ALON has created leading programs nationally to help businesses like yours thrive in the travel trade market.
The workshops will guide you through how to enhance your ability to work effectively and efficiently with B2B travel trade. You will learn guidelines and develop resources to:
- Establish the perfect pitch points for easy integration into B2B working relationships
- Receive the tools to properly price your products for travel trade distribution so revenue and profit are top priority
- Lay out your sellable products and services for your company to best sell them through 3rd party resellers of travel
- Write your playbook of operational tactics to make your business run smoothly
- Hand-design smart partnerships to create destination itineraries that appeal to and attract international visitors
Schedule and Registration Details
The activation workshops will cover tools, resources, and content development to efficiently work with the travel trade and/or effectively participate in sales activation programs. Click to expand and learn more about each program.
Destination Marketing Activation Session 1
The program will guide you on how to:
- Enhance ability to work effectively and efficiently with B2B travel trade to develop and increase domestic and international inbound business.
- Strategically think about what is necessary to prepare to effectively work with the travel trade.
- Discover the necessary protocols to work with the travel trade and take advantage of its many benefits.
- Complete the session with the capacity and support to implement processes that will save time and money while generating increased sales bookings.
Date: February 9, 2023
Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Location: Virtual – FREE Online Registration Required
Destination Marketing Activation Session 2
The program will guide you on how to:
- Dive deeper into the various levels of the travel trade, their unique characteristics, and begin to shape an inbound tourism development strategy.
- Build a dynamic “business profile” that addresses the requirements of 3rd party sellers of travel products to gain traction to sell New York State destination stakeholders more easily.
- Develop a competitive pricing structure while maintaining industry rate integrity, which allows sales to turn on in-travel trade companies.
- Develop products and services positioned to serve the inbound visitor market, as FIT, Group, and DMC allows inclusion in travel trade tariffs and sales networks.
Date: March 2, 2023
Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Location: Virtual – FREE Online Registration Required
Destination Buyer Panel Workshop
During this session:
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- Join representatives from key travel trade operators and buyers from international markets looking to bring more visitors to NYS.
- See how to work with operators to grow your tourism business and be part of the future of NYS tourism.
Date: March 22, 2023
Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Location: Virtual – FREE Online Registration Required
Who Should Attend & Why?
Working with travel trade to attract group and international travelers can have a positive impact on most sectors of the travel industry. The FREE workshops are open to all tourism businesses in the Adirondacks/North Country.
This project is supported by a grant awarded to NYSTIA by New York State’s Empire State Development and the I LOVE NY Division of Tourism under Governor Kathy Hochul’s Regional Economic Development Council Initiative.