Vcom's EZair Set to Take Off at 11th Annual Conference

Tue Jun 16 2009, by Travel Trade Staff ,

(With Vacation.com's 11th Annual International Conference opening tomorrow at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Travel Trade asked vice president of marketing Stephen McGillivray for a review and outlook on developments at the industry's largest marketing organization.)
Travel Trade: How are Vacation.com member agencies doing this year?

Stephen McGillivray: Overall it's been a challenging year for the industry, and our members are no exception. We salute them, however, as many are adapting by reengineering their business model. We deeply believe this reengineering will pay off handsomely for them when the economy recovers and vacation travel returns to last year's levels.

It will return -- we are sure of that -- so our message to members is this: keep marketing. It is extremely helpful that our suppliers continue to support our member agents at unprecedented levels with co-op and advertising support.

In spite of our collective challenges, we've had some wonderful agency success stories, many of which involved the combination of our two strongest member benefits: Engagement and EZguider. Engagement makes their phone ring, driving business to the member agency, where EZguider takes over, making the transaction of that Engagement-driven inquiry easy and efficient.

Travel Trade: What is Vacation.com's outlook going forward?

McGillivray: We are committed to continue developing tools that make our members more profitable. Our mission remains unchanged: to tap into the "Power of the Partnership" to the benefit of all. That Partnership -- between North America's best travel agents, our industry-leading team of Preferred Suppliers, our dedicated staff and our global-wise parent company, Amadeus -- gives us the financial strength, industry intelligence and vision to enhance our existing programs and consistently develop new ones to drive business to the doors of our members.

Travel Trade: Vacation.com has enhanced Engagement first with Cohorts and now with PURL, or personalized URLs. What have the results been for agents, vendors and customers?

McGillivray: The results exceeded our expectations. As you know, the trick with email marketing is to first get consumers to open the email, and then click on the promotion for more information. Generally, our e-Engagement promotions generate an above-average open and click-through rate, which we're immensely proud off. But these PURLs really got people's attentions -- and why shouldn't they? Each PURL email was personalized to the recipient, and the link to click had the recipient's name in the Web address. The result: our open and click-through rate doubled!

So far, we've only used the PURL strategy with one promotion, a great offer from Globus. Globus -- along with our member agents whose clients so enthusiastically clicked on the offer -- could not be happier with the result, and they, along with three or four other suppliers, are working with our marketing team now on future PURL promotions.

Another recent enhancement to Engagement our members and suppliers are excited about is our ability to segment client lists by discretionary income, so that we can send offers only to those people with the money to travel. In a tough economy, that's a vital piece of information to have, and only Vacation.com has it.

Travel Trade: How can agents use Engagement to stay in front of their customers?

McGillivray: Engagement, our best in class consumer marketing program, is first and foremost a client retention tool. It is designed to keep a steady stream of carefully chosen offers arriving in the mail boxes and inboxes of clients. Every piece we send -- and we send out more than 20 million a year -- is authorized by the member and features the member agency as the sole call to action. The best part, it's free -- most of the pieces are paid for by supplier co-op funding, with extra pieces purchasable by the agent if desired.

To stay in front of their customers, all our member agents need to do is simply opt in to as many Engagement promotions as they can. To make this as easy as possible, we recently initiated QuickEmail, a convenience program that allows members to opt in to 12-month's worth of e-Engagements at one time.

Travel Trade: What about Hotel Elite - can you talk about the recent enhancements and about Vacation.com's power in the luxury end of the market in general?

McGillivray: We recently welcomed 41 new properties to Hotel Elite, our luxury hotel program, bringing the total number to 140 worldwide. We also added exclusive sightseeing tours for two- and three-night packages with guaranteed 15% commission. With these new additions, Hotel Elite now has lower rates, higher commissions and more benefits than any other hotel program from other agency groups.

Hotel Elite -- along with our World Connect program, which provides concierge service around the globe -- is a key piece to our luxury market portfolio. Our Preferred Suppliers include many luxury brands -- Crystal, Silversea, Ritz Carlton, Regent Seven Seas, Cunard, St. Regis, Blue Star Jets -- that our members sell quite well. When you can determine which clients have the discretionary income to travel, as I mentioned earlier, it opens the door for our members to more easily sell these brands.

Travel Trade: Any new developments with the EZguider platform? And what are the benefits EZguider offers for both agents and preferreds?

McGillivray: We're about to announce our most recent EZguider development at our 11th Annual International Conference, but I'll give you a sneak peak.

It's EZguider's new air-booking functionality, called EZair, and it allows agents to make stand-alone and add-on air bookings without a GDS contract, monthly fees or productivity goals.

For Vacation.com members who do not have a GDS affiliation, EZair is a huge benefit, for they can now tap into a full range of GDS content and find flights on more than 140 airlines. Plus, when you combine EZair with EZguider's existing functionality -- tours, cruises and insurance -- it gives Vacation.com members the unique power to build components into a complex itinerary, all from one, easy-to-use source.

Our Preferred Suppliers fully support what we're doing with EZguider. They understand the beauty of the tool -- how it helps our members sell more, sell better, sell faster. And they know that we can use EZguider to push their product when they have a valuable offer for our members.

Blue Star Jets
885 Second Ave
New York
212.446.9037
www.BlueStarJets.com