PLAZA TRAVEL – WINNER 2002 BEST PRACTICES HONORABLE MENTION

The ASTA-Hyatt Travel Agent Best Practices program was an opportunity to recognize travel agencies for business processes that have broken the mold in the travel agency industry. Every day, travel agents are thinking of new and innovative methods for growing their businesses and serving their customers with efficient quality service. The winners of best practices and those given an honorable mention should be seen as leaders in the industry.

Selection Process
The American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) solicited best practice nominations from over 10,000 travel agencies and agents. Responses were received by ASTA from agencies in seven countries in the categories of Human Resources, Marketing, Operations, Selling and Technology. A committee comprised of one travel industry supplier, three travel agents, and one member of the travel media reviewed the submissions and jointly selected the four winners and eleven honorable mentions. Those selected for an honorable mention have produced excellent practices.

Plaza Travel: Developing Business through Vacation Travel Showcases

Description:
Although in the top 2% of sales nationwide, Southern California’s Plaza Travel has never been an agency to rest on its laurels. In today’s ever-changing travel marketplace, providing sales opportunities, timely information and awareness campaigns to both their clients and the 55 agents on their staff is an ongoing, challenging effort. Their best and most successful practice has come to fruition in the vehicles they have created to help increase sales and communications with their clients and staff. Over the past two years they have been building upon and implementing new tools and strategies such as on-site vacation showcase events at corporate accounts and a comprehensive (and award-winning) travel website. Each of these elements works in tandem and are communication vehicles that join their marketing, technology and operational efforts together. The results? Increased sales efforts and relations with their customers; as well as a much more motivated and consistently informed staff.

Comprehensive Website
Originally a rarely accessed “mom and pop” site, they developed a cutting edge (and what became an award-winning) travel website to meet the need of communicating information to their clients. The goal was to create a user-friendly experience for the client or visitor exploring the site, providing leisure and business travelers a useful, enjoyable, interactive experience. Combining features such as concise offerings, online booking capabilities, travel tips and article features, their site blends useful material that they personally write or create, along with handpicked features from their on-line subscriber services.

Results: Their website has been an extraordinary tool for Plaza Travel in a number of ways.

» By promoting the site in all printed materials, correspondence, in their travel presentations, and especially via their bi-weekly email newsletters, the site has been the catalyst for an increase in cruise & leisure travel inquiries and bookings since its development. They have been averaging approximately 3,500 hits per month.

» Due to its user-friendly ability, dozens of travelers weekly use the site as a communication vehicle with their Plaza agent for requesting information, booking their flights, hotels, etc.

» The site is the vehicle for which they manage all their group travel requests.
As the “Official Travel Agency” of various prestigious conventions, they have received thousands of online requests through their website, for any given group event.

» With their ability to create secure, password-protected access, many new and existing corporate clients take advantage of having their own dedicated Plaza Travel pages, which are created for them. This is one of their most popular features for corporations, enabling the company to view select options along with online reporting, and other pertinent data.

» As a company who prides itself on service first, their most important and proud results are the wonderful comments they have received from clients, who continue to revisit their site.

Vacation Travel Showcases
One of their favorite and most successful ways of developing vacation sales from their corporate base. To overcome the obstacle of business accounts not necessarily thinking of Plaza for their employees’ vacation travel planning, they contacted the administrators and developed fun-filled open house events, complete with tables of promotions, literature, prizes, giveaways, posters and travel consulting - on site at the corporate account’s office to showcase their leisure department.

Results:

» By communicating and creating this “awareness campaign” that they are vacation specialists, many of these showcases have become seasonal events at their corporate accounts, which they look forward to.

» They have been a positive public relations effort for both their agency and for the account.

» The showcases have been a source for gathering important database information (for sending promotions), as employees complete profile questionnaires about themselves in order to enter their prize drawings.

» By hosting the showcases, they have received many referrals including the employees friends and family.

» They promote and direct the employees to visit and revisit their website for all the latest updates.

» Showcases have a been a source for co-op opportunity with their preferred suppliers, who want to be included in their efforts.

» Best of all, it has produced newfound revenue, whether weekend getaways, honeymoons, cruises and more.