Making Family Holidays Merry

An excellent way to boost your family and multigenerational travel sales is to focus on promoting travel during school breaks and holidays. After all, not everyone wants to deal with winter weather, cooking for large groups and keeping the house clean for visitors. So we asked four travel executives for their best advice on how to promote and sell more family holiday travel.

Club Med

Xavier Mufraggi, CEO, Club Med North America

The best way a travel advisor can encourage family travel is to focus on the benefits and value. At Club Med, for example, our all-inclusive programming is geared toward providing transformational travel experiences without the hassle of pre-planning a vacation. With one upfront price, families can enjoy events like Club Med Sandpiper Bay’s Fest-tacular Months during the holidays, which includes everything from flying on a trapeze and children’s clubs to holiday-themed shows, meals and activities.

Royal Caribbean International

Vicki Freed, senior vice president of sales, trade support and services

As someone who personally takes holiday cruises each year, I find it the best time to travel as a large family. It’s the one time of year everybody can be together and enjoy wonderful meals, conversation and entertainment without the hassle of being together in someone’s home. With holiday cruise vacations, you can keep your winter wardrobe in the closet and start a new holiday tradition at sea with island-hopping, warm winter days and epic memories.

Holiday cruises offer all the holiday festivities you love, such as appearances from Santa, grand tree-lighting ceremonies, menorah lighting ceremonies, storytime with Santa’s elves, and an incredible New Year’s party on board. Plus, they still offer the best of Royal Caribbean, from the tallest slide at sea, Broadway entertainment and more.

Booking early if you need high-occupancy staterooms or suites is always going to be to your advantage, as these accommodations are in high demand for holiday cruises.

The Caribbean is always a popular destination, and it’s getting even more interest with the opening of Perfect Day at CocoCay, our private destination in the Bahamas.

For clients who typically take vacations over the holidays, now is the time to reach out, instead of having them call you. And for those who don’t, now is the time to get them thinking about it.

Florida's Historic Coast

Richard Goldman, president and CEO, St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & The Beaches Visitors and Convention Bureau

It’s always a good idea to inspire your clients to book holiday travel well in advance, especially when families are considering visiting Florida’s Historic Coast. St. Augustine’s Nights of Lights, a breathtaking display of over 3 million holiday lights throughout the downtown and bayfront area, has made the Nation’s Oldest City a must-see holiday destination, according to National Geographic Traveler. Light-Up Night is the fourth Saturday in November, and the display extends through January.

But demand for historic district hotels in those months is very high, so send your family clients an email right after school starts with videos of the Nights of Lights, which you can find at www.nightsoflights.com. Then follow up in early and late October with reminders and examples of holiday fun, using links to videos whenever possible.

There are also wonderful family-friendly resorts to choose from, among them the new Embassy Suites by Hilton on St. Augustine Beach, the Five-Diamond Ponte Vedra Inn & Club and the renowned Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort & Spa, all with loads of amazing activities for kids and teens and, of course, miles of Atlantic beaches.

Tauck

Steve Spivak, vice president, global sales and partner relations

Agents should remind their clients of all the work involved in simply spending the holidays at home. Paint a picture that describes everything that has to be done around the holidays—the housecleaning and other preparations, the entertaining, the cooking, the dishwashing. Then contrast that with the fun and pure relaxation the family would enjoy on a true holiday vacation.

We have holiday departures of several Tauck Bridges family trips, including a Tanzanian safari, an exploration of Italy, and family adventures in the Galapagos and Costa Rica. New for this year is the industry’s first-ever holiday season family river cruise, an eight-day sailing on the Danube from Regensburg to Budapest.

With each Tauck Bridges trip, the only work involved is choosing an itinerary and a departure date. Tauck does the rest.

Families are now far more geographically dispersed than ever before, prompting unprecedented numbers of people to travel for the holidays.

If your clients are already dedicating money for flights and vacation time to holiday travel—and if their relatives are doing the same—why not suggest a holiday trip for the entire extended family to a fun vacation destination instead?