The submit Marketing the experience of polar travel appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Travel Daily Media.
Both the North and South Poles have fascinated the world for ages and the recognition of polar travel is at an all-time excessive, with would-be adventurers eager on exploring the huge white expanse the place few have dared to go.
Over the years, a quantity of tour operators and expedition cruise firms have ramped up their efforts to really flip this deep-seated craving right into a actuality for travellers, and advertising each on and offline has been instrumental in pulling them in.
Travel Daily Media not too long ago had the alternative to sit down down with Tenille Hunt, regional gross sales director for Quark Expeditions, on how up to date applied sciences have helped increase public information on polar choices and subsequently flip this into precise bookings for expeditions.
Looking for brand new methods to work collectively
According to Hunt: “We’re always looking for innovative new ways to work better together to achieve the end result, which is to safely and responsibly send more people to the polar regions.”
To make this attainable, Quark Expeditions launched a brand new on-line accomplice useful resource on its web site final yr, the Quark Expeditions Partner Portal.
This one-stop-shop has the whole lot that workforce members and travel brokers want to advertise polar travel.
As Hunt explains: “It includes PolarPRO, which is our bite sized, interactive training programme that agents join to become a certified Polar Seller; the Portal also has access to our BrandFolder, which has easy to access images and videos, and essentially all the marketing assets that they can use on Facebook, Instagram, and EDMs.”
Indeed, the useful resource has the whole lot entrepreneurs want, proper all the way down to press releases detailing contemporary choices and companies.
For these trying right into a extra interactive method, Quark Expeditions introduces an AI agent that could be a pleasure to take care of: Parker the Polar Bear.
Hunt stated of this digital bruin: “Parker the Polar Bear is my new colleague that you can ask anything. You could actually type in: ‘When is the best time to see penguins in Antarctica’ And he’ll absolutely answer everything.”
Hunt extremely recommends the use of the AI-driven instrument supplied amongst Quark’s agent assets to anybody who desires to get proper in and promote polar expeditions to their purchasers, encouraging these keen brokers to enroll in the firm’s accomplice portal.
The altering face of the up to date polar traveller
Hunt identified that one of the key points they should think about in terms of advertising polar expeditions is the means the market itself has shifted since the pandemic hit again in 2020.
As she places it: “The typical polar traveller is quite interesting because it’s changed post-COVID: the average age was usually within the mid-60s age bracket. Now, we are seeing that come down, as we’re seeing more young professionals that want to travel to the polar regions, as well as more multi-generational families, especially from India, Singapore, and Thailand.”
Hunt additional defined that it’s not unusual to get round six or eight individuals in a single reserving as a result of they’re households travelling collectively.
At the identical time, the firm additionally will get inquiries from those that explored the world previous to the pandemic who, because of their experiences over the previous a number of years, need to travel to bucket checklist locations like the Arctic and Antarctic Regions earlier than they’re any older.
Hunt stated: “People are doing these trips now because they want to see these places now that they have the opportunity to visit, and this is a trend we’ve seen happen across the board.”
Marketing to the Asia Pacific
As Hunt talked about above, a sizeable quantity of inquiries relating to polar expeditions have come from Asian nations and this used to pose a problem with regional brokers given the time distinction between them and Quark’s most important workplace in Canada.
This month, particularly for these in the Asia Pacific (APAC), Quark Expeditions is introducing a six-part webinar sequence attuned to native time zones.
Deployed as one webinar every week for a six-week interval, these bite-sized lectures will run for 20 minutes every and begin at 8:30am, enabling brokers to soak up key learnings with their morning espresso.
Hunt added: “We know that some agents like to ring us and talk to our reservation staff whom we call our Polar Travel Advisors. We have Polar Travel Advisors in Australia who are in Australian time zones and they are open 24 hours a day, six days a week.”
On the different hand, for brokers with extra superior experience in promoting polar expeditions, Quark Expeditions not too long ago launched a Quote and Hold instrument.
As Hunt explains it: “Instead of them needing to ring or for like our Perth brokers or our Singapore brokers at totally different time zones, they could simply need to bounce on-line they usually know what they need they usually can actually simply maintain that cabin. That’s a brand new instrument that we’ve not too long ago launched, which is making doing enterprise with us very easy.
Quark Expeditions additionally prides itself on an incredible workforce of enterprise growth managers (BDMs) in Australia whom brokers can simply attain at any time every time they want prompt info, in addition to in-person coaching if obligatory.
Hunt stated: “We love nothing more than getting in front of agents’ clients because our team is among the most experienced in the industry .We’ve worked out we’ve got over 60 years of shared experience selling the polar regions, so we’re all veterans in the polar space.”
She added that promoting polar expeditions includes storytelling, particularly visible storytelling as a result of each the North and South Poles are such scenic locations.
Hunt suggests: “Our biggest tip to agents is: if you want to sell these regions, get in touch with us, the BDMs, and we will easily organise an information night. It’s a lovely evening, where we bring along some bottles of wine, some cheese, get up to 20 consumers in the room, and we will do an hour’s presentation. We guarantee you that it gets returns on investment every time.That’s the biggest way to sell polar.”
Aside from this, if brokers need to get themselves to the polar areas, Quark Expeditions additionally encourages group excursions to familiarise them with the areas.
The submit Marketing the experience of polar travel appeared first on Travel Daily Media.
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