A Travel Agent’s Guide to Selling CANADA’S NORTHWEST TERRITORIES WITH
Offering Our Unique Journeys & Custom Planning Services to the Worldwide Travel Trade
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction and Welcome
2
Adventure Tourism
3
Our Unique Journeys Brochure
4
Things Your Clients Can DO Up Here
6
How To Sell The Aurora Packages
7
Using the PDF Brochure Page as a Marketing Tool
9
Using our Custom Tour Planning Services
10
Using Our Image Bank
11
How To Sell The Yellowknife Midnight Sun Package
12
How To Sell The Mackenzie River / Nahanni Package
14
How To Sell The Midnight Golf Classic / Summer Solstice
15
How To Sell The Reindeer Galore and Much More Package
16
How To Sell The Sunrise Festival Package
17
Selling Tips, Tools and Techniques
18
Adventure / Activity List
29
A Travel Agent’s Guide to Selling Canada’s Northwest Territories - Copyright © 2015 Susan Mercredi, Touch The Arctic Tours. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise whatsoever without written permission or authorization through payment of a Permission to Copy fee (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews) . For information please contact Susan Mercredi susan@topoftheworldtravel.com Protected by the Canadian Copyright Act. Limit of liability/disclaimer of warranty: Touch The Arctic Tours make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation, warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising here from. The fact that an organisation or website is referred to in this work as a citation and / or potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information, the organisation or website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.
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Introduction and Welcome This publication by Touch The Arctic Tours is designed to help you the travel agent understand more about Canada’s north and how you can sell it. We understand not every travel agent is comfortable selling soft adventure travel however this niche has been around for decades and still rates as one of the top segments to sell.
Susan Mercredi, CTC President
Statistics show that more women than men are actually going out of bounds to enjoy the adventuresome side of their travel personalities. Couples want to get married standing on the tundra and groups of your clients we know will just say a collective “WOW!”, when they experience the Northern Lights for the first time… and yes they crackle and pop! Touch The Arctic Tours is a division of Top of The World (2000) Ltd., a northern owned travel agency with our head office located in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Top of the World has an ownership structure of which 70% are Inuit and Metis shareholders.
About Touch The Arctic Magazine Touch The Arctic Tours Magazine is owned and published by Top of The World (2000) Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Protected by International Copyright Law. Touch The Arctic Tours Magazine can be shared, forwarded, cut and pasted but not sold, resold or in any way monetized. Using any images or content from Touch The Arctic Tours Magazine must be sourced as follows: “Copyright Top of The World (2000) Ltd.” Top of The World (2000) Ltd.. 5105 48th Street, Yellowknife, NT CANADA X1A 1N5. Note: Top of the World (2000) Ltd., and Touch The Arctic Tours Magazine are not responsible for outcomes based on how you interpret or use the ideas in Touch The Arctic Tours Magazine.
Our agency has been in operation for 24 years with 18 employees. Top of The World (2000) Ltd., is a strong contributor to the northern community. We are proud to support many youth initiatives through sport and academics and we contribute annually to several large fundraising events; Champions for Children, KidSport, Minor Hockey, Arctic Winter Games and The Children’s Wish Foundation to name a few. Members of the TOTW team are long term residents of the north with combined years of experience that is hard to match under one agency’s roof. We are made up of senior travel consultants with knowledge and expertise that allow us to confidently handle your northern tour requests. Top of The World (2000) Ltd., is a member in good standing of leading industry organizations including – IATA, ACTA, CITC, CLIA, ASTA, BSP Canada and the Ensemble Travel Group.
Contact us here: travel@touchthearctictours.com Toll Free: 1-844-606-6784 Visit: www.touchthearctictours.com
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ADVENTURE TOURISM You’ve selected a niche that is going places and in one major direction which is UP! Meaning up north, to the Northwest Territories, Canada. Huge gains in recent years as you’ll read below. Not only that, but there is an adventure for everyone! The global value of the adventure tourism market is living proof of its growth and climbing in dramatic fashion. The 2013 Adventure Tourism Market Study values the global outbound adventure travel sector to be worth US$263 billion. The report also states that: when this US$263 billion is combined with the estimated $82 billion spent for related gear, apparel and accessories, adventure travelers spent more than $345 billion in 2012 for travel related to adventure. The adventure travel market offers you so many niche markets to explore and of course if you happen to have a passion for a particular destination such as Canada’s Northwest Territories then you can focus purely on packaging your passion using our unique programs. Within the adventure travel segment there are categories describing the level of trip as in Soft, Hard and Extreme. Canoeing a meandering river might be soft, a trek along a steep trail might be hard and getting to the true North Pole would be extreme. Sell these trips, create custom FIT journeys, package your own adventure passions… there’s no end to the opportunities waiting for you using our packages and custom planning services.
In this sales guide you’ll find dozens of ideas to help you sell our world – the Spectacular Northwest Territories!
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OUR UNIQUE JOURNEYS BROCHURE Be sure to order a supply of our Unique Journeys brochure and talk to us about your direct mail and e-mail campaigns. We can offer advice, images, videos and more to help you attract clients interested in our unique part of the world.
Our e-Brochure is published on ISSUU.com for your convenience and from there you can share it with your clients. In its digital format the Unique Journeys brochure can be read on most mobile devices. Click HERE to view online. Click HERE to download the ISSUU app. Our website is always being updated so check back often and especially check what’s new on the Travel Agent Page where you will find royalty free images you can use in your own marketing of our tours.
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The Soft Adventure Market has never stopped growing and continues to remain one of the BEST niche segments to focus on. As a travel agent serving many generations you’ll find that both Generation X and Y as well as Baby Boomers both young boomers and those bordering on the senior age bracket all have a desire to do something wild, to witness the great north of Canada’s Northwest Territories. This guide has been created to help you sell more travel to our part of the world using Touch The Arctic Tours as your core tour partner. Be sure to explore this 2013 study – click the image to find it. Below are the tour packages we offer and we will explain in this guide how you can market and sell each one to your existing clients and how to attract prospects too.
http://touchthearctictours.com/tour-packages/our
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THINGS YOUR CLIENTS CAN DO UP HERE In addition to our tour packages we also offer a custom tour planning service for when your client’s needs do not fit into the packaged tour dates, departures and itinerary. With our northern connections, tourism partners and community leaders who want to show your clients their world we can arrange almost anything your clients are asking. If you need some ideas on what your clients can do up here, try these:
The Aboriginal Culture naturally plays an important role in your client’s trip north and you will find many clients extremely interested in knowing more and learning firsthand about the lives and culture of the aboriginal people who live here. We can help arrange cultural exchanges for individuals and groups.
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HOW TO SELL THE AURORA PACKAGES It has to be said that the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis pretty much sell themselves. Watching the lights dance on a video is one thing, being there and looking up is another whole experience that’s never forgotten. To help you promote and sell the Aurora packages we have put together several images and video content for you to use. You will find what you need on our website under the Travel Agent tab. Add Your Own Marketing Slogan One way to use the images we provide, is to add a slogan to the image so that you have a call to action and an image combined. You can use MS Word or MS PowerPoint or if you use a graphics software such as Photoshop Look for Page 6 in our Unique Journeys brochure Elements you can upload the image and add the text there. Here’s how you add text to your image in Word document:
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Using WordArt is similar to clicking on a Text Box and typing in your words. The difference when you use WordArt is that you can stretch the text and transform it into what you want it to do – i.e. be straight, or curve or even form a circle. When you look at the image of the Aurora imported into the Word document you can see that there is a “natural” location for your slogan to appear – and that would be the top left area of the image where the mass of blue sky exists. Adding a white slogan here would stand out very well against the dark blue sky. Here’s how it might look:
Here are more slogan ideas you can use: 1. Sit under the stars and watch the lights. 2. The Aurora Borealis is waiting to dance for you! 3. When the sun goes down, the lights go on. 4. Imagine taking this photograph. 5. The Best Light Show in The World! 6. Lighten’ Up Northern Style. 7. Imagine THIS! 8. Yes they crackle and they pop too. 9. See it for yourself. 10. Bring the family to witness the best show in town.
You get the idea. It’s important to lead your clients into thinking about being here, and watching this event take place.
AGENCY TEAM SLOGANS: Get your agency team together and start a contest for the best slogan to match the image you intend to use. Start with the one we’ve included above and see what slogans your team can create.
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USING THE PDF BROCHURE PAGE AS A MARKETING TOOL Once you download the e-Brochure in PDF format you can then use various pages to create your own PDF mailer. Still focused on the Aurora package, here once again is the page from the brochure. By extracting this one page you can save it as is and then do one or more of these things:
Email it as an attachment… Email a link to it… Post it to your Facebook page… Add a download button on your website… Print it and mail it __________________________________ __________________________________
Social Media Content You can post our information to your Facebook page stating that you have some wonderful tour packages to the NWT available and then you can add a few words to describe them. In fact you can use the text direct from our brochure page.
Use this text as is or make changes to it to suit your agency’s marketing style.
You don’t have to give away all the information when you do this. You can hold back on the PDF and within your post let’s say on Facebook, you can add, “Send me a note if you want to receive the one page overview of this package…” or words to that effect depending on your relationship with the people liking your FB account.
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USING OUR CUSTOM TOUR PLANING SERVICES TTAT operates a customization service, which you would know as FIT which now means Flexible Independent Travel. In essence we can arrange and accommodate almost anything your client requests of you. Weather permitting that is. Our packages are the tip of the iceberg in this respect and we offer them to attract attention and to give your clients an easy to book, taste of the NWT. Then when the dedicated adventurer makes contact with you or someone has a box to tick and it’s all about seeing the north then we can put our custom services into action. We can charter, set up, arrange, fly in, fly out, move equipment and whether you have one photographer or a group of photographers who want to photograph the caribou migration or a muskox herd - that we can do. Trips to where Franklin’s ship was discovered - that we can do. Groups who want to visit the true North Pole… it takes planning and that we can do. When it comes to marketing custom tours you’ll need to know your stuff as the clients you’ll attract will either be very well versed on the type of trip and the destination they are requesting or they will be neophytes and you’ll need to hold their hand. If you yourself have an interest in travelling the north and perhaps you enjoy and have studied aboriginal culture then why not be the tour escort of your own custom group departure? We’ll be there to assist you. If you are an avid outdoor / wildlife photographer the same concept applies and it applies to those of you who are perhaps interesting in northern cuisine, or fishing or kayaking. Whatever it is your clients need and want to book north of 60 - we can help.
BRANDED TOUR WEAR If your clients are celebrating something special we can arrange to cost in ball caps and t-shirts to commemorate the event such as: “We Saw The Aurora!” or “Aurora 2015”. Just let us know the details and we will help to make your client’s trip north the most unforgettable experience of a lifetime.
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USING OUR IMAGE BANK The Travel Agent Page on our website will serve as a marketing data base for you where you will find a variety of resources and information that will include images you can use in your marketing of our tour products. The images we have posted on this page we own and/ or have permission to use. There is no need for you to credit them to a photographer or company. You can also source images direct from the Northwest Territories Tourism website. In doing so you must open an account, select the images you wish to use and then submit your request.
You’ll find this source of images under the media tab here: http://media.spectacularnwt.com/ Click there and follow the clicks to highlight and download the images you want to use.
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HOW TO SELL THE YELLOWKNIFE MIDNIGHT SUN PACKAGE Every city claims to be different from the rest and that’s no doubt true. So what’s different from Yellowknife and the rest of the world’s cities that you sell? Well… location, location, location would be the answer. There is no other location to match where Yellowknife sits, or its history as to how it started on this very spot. When you’re clients are looking for something different rather than going back to London, New York, Paris or Madrid… you can offer them Yellowknife for all the reasons other tourists love heading north. Here’s the thing, you can tell your younger clients that when it Look for Page 7 in our Unique Journeys brochure comes to learning a little more about the city itself, well, Yellowknife has an app for that. It’s what residents use, but hey… apps are always good to mention when selling to Generation X and Y. Endless Summers Who doesn’t want endless summer days when they are on vacation? Here then is one more selling point that you can use as a slogan to attract attention. Send that slogan out via email and post it on your social media accounts and be sure to add or attach some of the glorious images that show and tell the story better than text. Google Maps DIY Fam Trips It’s always a good idea to take yourself on a DIY Fam trip via Google Street View. So many travel agents use this tool now for a quick trip/click around a city they have not yet visited.
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Easy to do, just open Google, click on Maps, type in Yellowknife, NWT and when the map appears, look for the wee yellow guy hanging out in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Click on him and move him to a street that appears in blue. Drop him there and the screen will change to Street View. Now you can explore the City of Yellowknife by clicking on the road ahead. Change direction by moving the screen left or right with your mouse. Once you have “travelled� the city using Google Maps Street View you will have a better idea of how the city is laid out and that makes it easier to sell.
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HOW TO SELL THE MACKENZIE RIVER / NAHANNI PACKAGE These days when travellers and tourists enter the Nahanni they do return. In days past there were records of travellers entering the Nahanni and never returning. Perhaps they found their gold and carried on and out so that no one would know the made it rich. The Mackenzie and the Nahanni have history and are generally very well known to certain travellers. The Nahanni Attraction The Nahanni National Park offers your clients 11,000 square miles of this UNESCO designated site with its exquisite scenery. Ideal for your photography loving clients, and so easy to attract a group if you knock on the local photography club.
Look for Page 8 in our Unique Journeys brochure
Literary enthusiasts will also find the Nahanni attractive however from a different point of view. Many of your Baby Boomer clients will be familiar with stories of the Headless Valley and how over many years past, more than a few explorers have not returned or have been found headless. Virginia Falls – One to Check off the Bucket List Twice as high as Niagara Falls and roaring just as loud. Just the image of it will help you sell this tour. There are as you well know some clients who travel the world to view waterfalls… and if they have not yet stood over Virginia Falls, now’s the time. So whatever the attraction for photographers, artists, writers, waterfall lovers and those who love a good story albeit macabre… you have a fantastic tour to market.
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HOW TO SELL THE MIDNIGHT GOLF CLASSIC / SUMMER SOLSTICE No doubt many of your clients are golfers and if you service corporate travel as well as leisure then you have the makings of a golf group heading north. As you can see on the tour page there are reasons to play the course in Yellowknife and one of those is the Canadian North Midnight Classic. We bet not too many of your golfing clients have checked that box! So now you have something else to push market their way. You can use any of the glorious images found on our Travel Agent webpage to support your marketing and don’t forget that your golfing clients also do other things like kayaking and Look for Page 9 in our Unique Journeys brochure photography. So using an image of Virgina Falls for instance could add one more package to the overall arrangements you are planning for your golf group – and if members of the group wish to split off individually, no problem. We can arrange that for you. The Golf AND… Marketing Plan Here’s where you can think up a series of customized golfing packages that include other activities like fishing for instance. The Club and Rod Package might be a name you could use. It doesn’t exist yet, but it will if you want to make it happen your way. Get creative and we’ll support whatever you come up with.
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HOW TO SELL THE REINDEER GALORE AND MUCH MORE PACKAGE Chances are your clients have seen the crossing on one of the many TV travel channels or on YouTube – which might have been the video shown below. You can click on the image to view this short clip of the crossing. Why not this YouTube video to Look for Page 10 in our Unique Journeys brochure you own YouTube channel and send the link to your clients along with a link to our brochure? It’s a marvellous video to use when you wish to entice your clients to explore the event a little more and leave them thinking “I wish I was there!”
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HOW TO SELL THE SUNRISE FESTIVAL PACKAGE Once again this is something you just have to witness in order to understand it. You just cannot understand the full scale of this festival watching it on TV or a video. Mind you that’s one way to build a client’s interest. Typically when the sun comes Look for Page 10 in our Unique Journeys brochure up and the drumming starts most people assume a different persona. Some go back in time as if they were witnessing the event many years ago and others stay in the moment. Of course everyone shoots a photo with their smartphone! And then there’s Inuvik. WOW! Enough said. It really is a place to visit and totally different to what your clients might have experienced to date and completely opposite to the Caribbean islands and that’s what you selling here. Something very different.
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SELLING TIPS, TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES When it comes to selling our products you’ll need to think Soft Adventure. That’s the premise of our products. What we create for your clients when they come north will be an adventure for them that memory of their experience will last a lifetime. The essence of soft adventure packages is found in this well-known quote:
Your clients will be thrilled and they will be “home” for supper too where they will chat with their friends and new acquaintances about the day’s events. Of course trips, slips and falls can and do happen to make sure your clients are fully protected with travel insurance. Know Your North Selling Canada’s North is a niche market for many travel agents. If you have the same idea then it is a good thing to study the land you intend to sell. This knowledge will allow you to talk effectively with your clients and the odd snippet of historical fact can help you close the sale. Your local book store will cater to the large coffee table historical adventure books plus you can search online as you know. You’ll be looking for books ranging from ancient to modern explorers and their routes. Adventurers back in the day were mostly men. There were however a few women who struck out on their own and that by itself is a niche market you can explore locally. Old maps are always haunting and worthwhile collecting. Imagine arranging an adventure based on a 17th century map! You get the idea. It’s a modern day adventure with a twist. The news about Franklin’s ship being found sparked a great interest in visiting Canada’s north.
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Profile Your Existing Clients After you have checked out the tour packages on our website you’ll have a good idea of what’s available in the northern adventure marketplace. If you do not yet have your own adventure passion to follow, perhaps there was a listing that sparked an interest for you personally and as a business niche to create such as becoming the Aurora Specialist in your area. Profiling your clients will help you create an adventure niche. Profiling your existing clients will help you determine their level of interest in your new niche. Profiling also helps you design which TTAT services / packages to offer. Client profiling is something to be done annually, as everyone will go through life changing events and make decisions based on what’s happening to them, today. So yes, you must stay in touch and be interested in the travel lives of your clients.
You might find someone has decided, it’s retirement time and say to themselves and everyone they know: “I’m going on an adventure…” – and that’s when they need the very thing we sell.
You might find a group of younger travellers from age 16 to 20, or 20 to 30 – all well connected via social media and wanting to step out and step up, or kayak a raging river, or just venture north to watch the Northern Lights and share a drink under the stars. We can arrange it.
You might find that someone has been recently widowed and decides to live, as in really live the rest of their lives to the hilt. With that comes “doing what you’ve always wanted to do”, going to visit a long lost relative, or climbing that mountain you’ve dreamed of climbing since you were a kid – and the only thing that prevented you from doing it, was the life that came your way. There are so many people in your community in this situation or will be soon. This segment should be profiled and their adventure planned for them.
In essence you’ll have male, female, family, women only, gay adventure travellers, senior adventurers, Baby Boomer to Zoomer adventurers and every other combination there is. Your decision, once you complete your survey, is whether or not to serve everyone or focus on a certain client profile, a specific niche market, a type of adventure, or destination. How and What to Survey Here are a couple of basic surveying tools and two of the more well-known programs – Survey Monkey and Constant Contact. Check locally for other FREE survey tools. Once you establish an account you can send out a short survey to your client list that will tell you, once the returns are in, the type of adventures your clients would like you to tell them about. Take it from us, the Aurora Packages are always checked.
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http://www.constantcontact.com/onlinesurveys/features/create https://www.surveymonkey.com/user/sign-up/?fefla=survale
Once you find the right survey tool for you, review the various survey question options such as Multiple Choice questions, Yes/No and Free Flow responses where the client will type a sentence or two. You’ll also have a Rank / Rate question allowing your clients to rate something from 1 to 10, like to dislike, bad to good. The BEST returns would be the RANKING / RATING question as this is less work for you. The Free Flow response means you’ll be reading all night long and trying to capture keywords and common phrases to decide the mood of your clients. Too much time. The suggestion is to go with the Ranking / Rating Styled Survey. You could also add in a Yes/No question for decisive answers. Make sure your survey tool counts and graphs responses. Here’s a sample of the Ranking / Rating question format: How would you rate an Adventure Trip as something you would like to do? 1. Not interested 2. Would like to try 3. I love adventure! If you would like to experience an Adventure Package - what type would it be? o Aurora Viewing o Wildlife Viewing o Canoeing o Kayaking o Aboriginal Culture o Golfing Yellowknife o Photography o Events You also want to know when your clients are thinking of going – so try these questions too: When are you planning to go on this / your next adventure? J F M A M J J A
S
O
N
D
Surveying the travel date/time of year is very important. This information will tell you how and when you should market your products and also when to market and follow up with the clients who responded. Keep your clients focused on “this year” versus thinking planning too far ahead. You need sales this year. Page 20
Look For Patterns Travel & tourism is all about patterns. There is a flow to the business based on trends and seasonality, weather and even war and political change. If all things are well in the world then your results should be based on personal needs and wants vs anything else. Here’s an example of what your survey might discover: Reading these survey results you can see you have a strong base of clients who already love adventure travel. The rest would like to try. The main activity is Aurora Viewing and the preferred package is The Aurora Village. Now you can think about your marketing and with this primary data, you can be very specific in how you promote. Timing for the adventures in the North will always be subject to certain conditions – so you must start marketing way in advance. We can help you better understand how and when.
Where to Learn More About the Adventure Market From special surveys conducted by the Adventure Travel Trade Association, Gutsy Traveler, JWT and with snippets from your own data collection you will be able to get a handle on who is the current and prolific adventure traveller. First things first – here are the links to the reports. The images are also hyperlinked and the links are active and clickable from this page.
http://www.fairtradetourism.org.za/uploads/files/ATT A_-_Adventure_Tourism_Market_Study_2013.pdf
http://www.jwtintelligence.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/04/F_JWT_Travel_ChangingCourse_04.29.13.pdf
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http://gutsytraveler.com/women-travel-statistics-2/
Written By: Nicole Petrak http://www.adventuretravelnews.com/the-year-of-theconnected-traveler-2014-trends-that-impact-the-industry
From here on make it an annual event to follow up on these companies and the reporting they do. That way you’ll have current statistics and trending information on which to base your marketing and business planning decisions. It can be said that an adventure traveller is anyone who wants an adventure regardless of age, race, and religion and so on. When you read the reports that are accessible you’ll note they are mostly driven by the adventure traveller from America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Western Europe. There are obvious statistics that are relevant and one is the fact that women are the major segment taking adventure trips. Women Adventure Travellers: Before you run off to chat to a group of 18 year olds, there is an average age being mentioned in these reports of 47. Women, and if that age is middle aged, then middle aged women in the 47 year age range (and the survey mentions “- and they wear a size 12”) and the additional information tells you that the average adventure traveller is a mature women versus a younger person just off the catwalk. You might feel more comfortable marketing your adventure passion to your own age group (young as in 18 to middle aged as in 47 or older) and that’s fine, no problem there. The thing to keep in mind though is the average age mentioned above. The Gutsy Traveler report states that the most common reason women travel solo is because they value their independence and are sophisticated enough to travel alone; they are interested in visiting an unusual destination, they prefer making their own schedule and travel solo to reconnect with themselves. I know from personal experience that women in their 70s are out there on the trails and even climbing to the base camp of Everest. The healthy Baby Boomer and senior adventure traveller are alive and well, although not in high numbers.
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It was also noted that 91% of women travelling together are travelling with their friends – and that’s a very important note to remember when marketing and especially when using a social media channel to promote your tours. It shouts referrals and small groups. Activities cited in the ATTA 2013 Market Study included: Soft adventure options such as: Hiking Kayaking Rafting Snorkeling Volunteer tourism Archaeological expeditions
Hard adventure options such as: Caving Climbing Heli-skiing Kite surfing Trekking Paragliding
Further highlights from the Adventure Tourism Market Study include:
Adventure travellers are younger than non-adventure travelers. Average age of 36. The average length of a soft adventure trip was ten days in 2012. Adventure travellers read publications such as: National Geographic National Geographic Traveler Men’s Health Cosmopolitan Vogue.
54% of travellers plan to participate in an adventure activity on their next trip. 42% of travellers currently participate in adventure activities. 73% of adventure travellers plan to participate in an adventure activity on their next trip. 22% of adventure travellers plan on doing the same adventure activity as their last trip. 45%of adventure travellers plan on using a tour operator on their next trip. 78% of adventure travellers use Facebook.
The above information has been abbreviated so be sure to read the full report.
The Family Adventure A northern experience makes for a terrific family adventure and especially the Aurora packages. So keep this in mind when you want to market something different and opposite to that generic beach vacation. We also have cultural and wildlife viewing packages that suit a family group and will for sure keep children engaged.
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Building Your Credibility When you enter the soft adventure industry and start selling the kind of packages we offer, it is always a good thing to be able to show that you have also visited the north and yes, taken more than a few selfies. Once you build up a decent number of northern images with you featured in the frame then you can use them to market your new niche via your social media outlets and also show them off on your website. Marketing and Getting the Word Out No matter where you live, chances are there is an adventure travel show planned in the near future - or it just happened! It may not be scheduled for your city or town, but it will be scheduled in the closest largest city. Check out event listings online and if the fees to exhibit are acceptable to your budget, book a booth and sell yourself and your niche. Here’s a few that go on around the world.
http://telegraphoutdoorshow.co.uk/
http://adventureexpo.com
http://www.outdooradventureshow.ca/toronto/visitor/
http://www.myadventureexpo.com/
Create Your Own Northern Experience Trade Show / Event Don’t be shy of putting on your own adventure event Keep the event small and intimate if you wish. Focus on clients and their adventure friends – or, go the more expensive route and advertise the show to attract adventure prospects. Some of your clients might just want to be one of your speakers and help sell your other clients on coming north. You might find that local retailers who sell adventure gear versus travel are very interested in supporting your show. For coaching on how to put together your own trade show, visit: http://thetradeshowcoach.com/
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Social Media Adventure Through your social media channels you can mention your northern adventures and at the same time promote your upcoming tours – either packages or customized trips we’ve helped you create. Here’s a mock Facebook post that talks up the trip you just made AND asks for a response. The post is also supported by selected images and a video. The video should close out with you saying on camera: “Don’t forget to book your next adventure to the Northwest Territories with me…!”
JUST BACK FROM AN AMAZING LIGHT SHOW! You should have been there. Fantastic. Check the photos to see where we went and what we saw. Planning to go back late in the year if you’re interested. If you have any adventurous pals and would like to arrange a custom tour, let me know. You can also enjoy a video of our trip on YouTube – here’s the link.
A call to action must be inserted into all your social media marketing activity and generic posts.
Use Twitter as the Adventure Unfolds – Get Followed There and Back The world is Twitter mad. That we know. One of the best ways to use Twitter to market your adventure programs is to Tweet during your adventure trip. Of course you can use Twitter to chat about your upcoming programs however there is more action, more excitement to Tweet the moment as you experience it! Now ponder this: You are sitting under the night sky and the lights begin to dance across the sky. You Tweet. You shoot a selfie. You tweet. The lights dance some more… you video, shoot a time lapse…. You Tweet.
You don’t have to be leading an expedition - as long as you are out there and reporting back live as it happens, you will build a following that you can then target market when you return home to plan your next outing into the wild of Canada’s north. Could this be a sweet Tweet idea for the following?
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Images That Will Social Sell Your Tours The world of social media is a world made up of images and that means photography and that in turn suggests that any social site featuring photographs is a site worth considering. You have Pinterest and Flickr and Instagram and you’ll always have Facebook to share your ‘just back from my latest adventure” images. You also have YouTube and Vimeo to showcase your videos and if what the data is telling is true… videos are taking over when it comes to building interest in travel. Take a click to Pinterest and Instagram and Flickr to discover what’s being posted when it comes to travelling the Northwest Territories and further afield. Chances are you can use some of the ideas that are promoting other destinations and adventure sites. Consider these social sites as FREE advertising outlets where you can pitch your products via the images that you upload. You can also add a slogan to the image such as a “Wish you were with us!” statement or even a, “Call us, we’re leaving August 15…” call to action.
Making Your Website Your Adventure Hub When you think of adventure, you think of National Geographic. And you do that because they have entered your mind via TV and their fabulous magazine and series of books that are for the most part adventure based. When you click on anything NG related it is the BEST in quality and this is the level you want to emulate. When an adventure travel prospect lands on your website they should be blown away with the layout, the images, the videos and the action. Your website must function and it must deliver on the imagery and the call to action. Most of your online off line marketing will push the reader to your website and that’s why it must be the best it can be. Revamp your website template to 16:9 HD wide screen. Look for a website with this feature. Your website can offer some or all of these additional, easily accessible features: Newsletter
Blog
Image Gallery
Video Gallery
Reference
How-To
Where-To
Supplier Product
Links to…
e-Brochures
Email links
Contact info
About YOU
Newsfeeds
RSS
Consumer Page
Survey Page
Contact Us
Live Chat
The Where to Next Page Skype Sessions
Partners Ask Me Now Link
JOIN THE ADVENTURE LIST AND S U B S C R I B E T O D A Y! Most of your marketing activity will drive your existing and prospective clients to your website. Once there, they will either be a fan or they’ll fade away. They need something of interest to see, read, respond to and get involved in.
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Your website should CONVERT the visitor to a lead. A lead is only a lead, and a prospective one at that. Even existing clients who have booked with you before need a nudge in the right direction, to move ahead, make the call and book on your next adventure. When you have too much happening on your website you can lose the customer. Too little and the same thing will happen, however if what you have is AWESOME. One great image and one heck of a slogan - you could be filling up your next ten departures.
Always go to the edge. It’s a much better view! What exciting images can you offer the visitor to your website? You have many choices. You can sell the same ole adventure listed in your preferred supplier’s brochures and for some that’s awesome enough. Or, you could work with us at TTAT to create what you believe is going be an Awesome X 10 trip of a lifetime. Then you have the enjoyment of developing a niche within a niche.
The Niche within the Niche You may not have heard this expression before – a niche within a niche. What it means is this: within established niche markets there is always another niche, sometimes so well hidden it can be missed. When you sift and sort and dig a little deeper, you find that golden nugget. Usually, there is someone who has discovered the niche within the niche already, but then again, perhaps YOU are the first to think up the concept. Let’s explore: The term we are using is Adventure Travel. The style or type of adventure travel most agencies sell is called Soft Adventure. Under that heading there are 20 or 30 activities that a customer can book with you such as scuba diving and hiking and kayaking. Then within just those three activities, there are different spin-off activities. For instance your clients could enjoy either of these activities in several countries. So let’s go with Kayaking and let’s make the Niche Destination Canada. Now, the niche within in the niche would be kayaking in the Northwest Territories. The activity remains the same, the core destination remains the same, but you’ve dug down to find something unique. This is the niche within the niche. Page 27
You can apply the same concept to almost anything travel related. Go with photography as almost 99% of tourists carry a camera of some type. Just like the kayaking activity, think Photography + Canada – now niche within the niche = photographing in the Northwest Territories planned by TTAT. The next layer of niche within the niche works like this: we have photography as the activity, we have the Northwest Territories as a niche of the core destinations (Canada) and now, we can attach the idea to the Aurora Packages and bingo: you have Photographing The Aurora in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Next if you really wanted to drill down further to make this package even more unique, you could decide to attract only those photographers who shoot with a Canon camera. Going for one more… you could even name the model of the camera such as the Canon 40D to the latest model. The benefit of naming the camera model is that it will attract photographers who shoot with that camera model and then, and this is core to the program the group can gather and chat about how to make better use of that camera’s features. If you managed to find an instructor for the trip and the camera model now you have something else to promote. This one fact – to exchange knowledge – is the clincher and the closer for this tour. Once the group returns home, they will for sure hold an exhibition of their best images and naturally you would attend and sell yourself.
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Adventure / Activity List Each activity below is either an adventure activity by itself or it can be connected to others niche adventure combinations. The idea here is for you to review this list and highlight what “speaks� to you as an opportunity. We have highlighted the activities TTAT can arrange for you in the NWT. ATV/Watercraft Rental Abseiling/Rap Jumping Aerobics African Heritage Agriculture Air Safari All-inclusive Adventures All-inclusive Packages Anthropology Archeology/History Art/Architecture Astrology Astronomy Auto Racing Backpacking Ballooning Barge/Canal Cruising Bear Watching Biblical Tours Bicycle Touring Bird Watching Botany Bungee Jumping Butterfly/Lepidoptery Camel Safaris Camping Canoeing/Kayaking Canyoning Castles/Palaces Cattle Cutting, Roping Cattle Drive Cave Art Caving Christian Tours Christmas Tours Church Tours Clans Collectors Tours Conservation Country Inn/Guest Ranch Covered Wagons Crafts Tours Cruise/Shore Excursions Cruises, Expeditions Cultural Expeditions Desert Expeditions Dhow Sailing Disabled Dogsledding Dolphin Research/Swim Driver-guide Duck/Dove Hunting Dude Ranch / Farm Stay Ecology Ecotourism Elephant Ride Environmental Education Equestrian Tours
Extreme Sports/Stunts FIT's Family Groups/Tours Farmhouse Festival Tours First Nations Culture Fishing / Fly Fishing Flightseeing Fly-in Charter Fly-in Hiking/Rafting Fly/Drive Package Foliage Tours Four-Wheel Drive Fox/Stag Hunting Garden Tours Gem Collecting Genealogy Geology Ghost Town Glacier Tours Goat Packing Gold Panning Gorilla Viewing Gourmet/Gastronomy Grandparent/child Tours Hang Gliding/Soaring Health & Fitness Heli-Rafting Heli-Ski Heli-Trekking Helicopter Tours Hiking Historic Houses History Tours Holistic Health Honeymoon Adventures Horse Breeding Horse Carriage Tours Horse Racing Horse Riding/Packing/Trek Horticulture House Boating Hovercrafting Hunting Ice Climbing Iceberg Viewing Ice Fishing Island Resort/Vacation Jeep Safari Jet Boat Expeditions Jet Skiing Jungle Expeditions Jungle Lodge Kite Skiing Kon-Tiki Rafting Language Study Lewis & Clark Trail Lighthouse Tours
Literary Tours Llama Packing Marine Biology Martial Arts Medicine Metaphysical Military History Mine Tours Motorcoach Tours Motorcycle Rental Motorcycle Rental/Touring Motorhome Tours Mountain Bicycle Tours Mountaineering Multisport Music/Dance Mystery Tours Myth & Folklore National Parks Native Americans Natural History Nature Reserve Nature Trips Northern Lights Viewing Oenology/Wine Study Oktoberfest Outdoor Skills/Adventure Training Overlanding Paddle Boarding Painting Paleontology Paragliding Penguin Viewing Photographic Tours Pilgrimage/Mythology Pioneer Skills Polar Bear Watching Polar Expeditions Railway Trips Rainforest Ranching Reindeer Safari Religion/Spirituality Research Expeditions River Cruises/Expeditions River Lore River Rafting Rock Climbing Rodeo Round The World Running/Jogging Safari/Game Viewing Sailing Schools Sailing Scuba/Snorkeling Sea Kayaking Self-drive Tours
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Seminars Shamanism Shipwrecks Single Travelers Ski Clinics Skiing /X Country Skiing/Downhill Skijoring Skydive Snowboarding Snowmobiling Snowshoeing Solar Eclipse Tours Solar/Alternative Energy Spa/Hot Springs Space Travel Spiritual Tours Sports Camps Sports Tours Surfing Swimming Tea Tours Teachers' Tours Textile Arts Trekking Truffle hunting Ultra-Light Flying Vegetarian Tours Veterans Videography Tours Villa/Chateau Rental Vintage Aeroplanes Vintage Cars Volcano Tours Walking Tours Waterskiing Weekend Escapes Whale Watching White Water Wild Horse Watching Wilderness Courses Wilderness Lodge Wilderness Vacations Wildflower Viewing Windjamming Windsurfing Winery Tours/Wine Tasting Women's Tours World Cup World Series Writing Workshops Yacht Charter, Bareboat Yacht Charter, Crewed Yoga/Meditation Zoology Zorbing
Recap: At this point you have a lot to think about. What we have covered is more or less Step One in the process of creating a profitable Northwest Territories Adventure Niche. With this information alone, you can move forward and start to put together your adventure travel content and promotion schedule. Your photography skills and the images you produce will support your marketing and your sales efforts. Be sure to start a folder and save your best of best adventure images to that folder. Read books. Write books. Subscribe to adventure magazines. Join ATTA and other adventure based associations and groups. Seek the advice and chat with us at TTAT.
Any questions about selling our packages? List them here and email them to us and we will respond within 24 hours. ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________
THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST IN SELLING TOUCH THE ARCTIC TOURS. WE LOOK FORWARD TO HELPING YOU BUILD YOUR ADVENTURE BUSINESS. www.tourchthearctictours.com travel@touchthearctictours.com
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