The Conversation Everyone Needs to Have with Their Travel Agent
Where should we go?
Yesterday I had a lady call me and she was very excited about traveling. This year marks her and her husband‘s 30th anniversary. She proceeded to tell me the story about how they haven’t traveled in a very long time because they had a son that was in his junior year of college and they just hadn’t had the time to themselves.
She’s semi-retired now and he just works and works so much that they had no time to even think about traveling. She expressed how she wanted this 30th year anniversary to mark the year that they start traveling more. She told me, “I want to go to Alaska or Hawaii. I have visited 48 of the states but I still have Hawaii and Alaska left to go.”
I explained to her that Hawaii was a great place to go and travel to, but that I wanted to know more about her and what they wanted to accomplish on this 30-year anniversary before we set a plan in place.
I asked her to tell me what they wanted to do on this vacation. She explained to me that her husband truly just wanted to go somewhere and relax. He wanted to be somewhere on a beach where he could walk out and go snorkel, where there weren’t high-rise condos and hotels. What he really wanted from this vacation was somewhere that was serene, compact, low-key, and where they could unplug.
When I first talk with someone looking to travel, I try thinking about all of the different places that fit what this person is really looking for. I search through my interpersonal Rolodex and think to myself, “Okay, where can I send this person that will accomplish their travel goals?”
After working through this process in my brain with this particular person, I told her “I am very sorry. I would love to send you to Hawaii and I would love to send you to Alaska, but I don’t think that’s how you want to kick off your travel season. I want to be your travel agent for life. I want to be the person that you use for your 30th year anniversary. I want to be the person that you use when your son has a honeymoon and then when you’re taking your grandchildren. I want to be that person. In order to do that, I have to do you a service that is going to last throughout the entire duration of our relationship and your travels.”
I knew the perfect place that I needed to send her to to kick off their 30th year anniversary. I hoped that they’d love this destination as much as I did.
I continued to tell her, “I definitely think that Galley Bay, Antigua is going to be the best 30-year anniversary spot for you.”
I hoped that they’d trust me as much as I trusted in this beautiful location. It’s a place you go to feel like you’re at a home away from home. It’s the perfect location to unplug and walk out to the ocean. This place was going to have everything that they wanted to accomplish on this vacation at this one place.
Being a travel agent, one of my favorite things is getting to serve people by helping them choose the perfect place to visit. This conversation may have not seemed monumental, but in the grand scheme of things talking with a travel agent to help you choose your destination could make the world of a difference for how your trip ends up going.