Romancing Your Clients

Many travel agents have a love affair with the destination wedding and honeymoon market, a niche that’s both lucrative and rewarding to sell.

For those agents who haven’t yet broken into the niche – but want to—the Destination Wedding Honeymoon Specialists Association (DWHSA) has a wealth of training, resources and advice to offer new-to-romance agents.

DWHSA focuses on the destination wedding, honeymoon and romance niches. It represents more than 800 specialist agents in the U.S. and Canada, plus the suppliers and destinations that serve them.

“Romance travel can be very lucrative,” said Lisa Sheldon, DWHSA’s executive director. “Honeymooners tend to spend one-third or more on their trip than on a regular vacation, and are often higher commission bookings.” Destination weddings also most often turn into groups, another lucrative sell for agents, she added.

But how difficult is it for agents to launch a destination wedding/honeymoon business? “For honeymoons, anniversary trips and other romantic getaways, it’s much easier, [as agents can] take basic trip elements and add romantic components to them,” Sheldon said.

On the other hand, destination weddings business tends to be more difficult to capture—at least initially. “There’s the trust factor a couple places in the agent since this is a once-in-a-life-time event, most likely in a foreign country,” she said. “The agent must know about marriage requirements, be familiar with the resorts in order to meet the needs of the couple and their guests, have some idea of how the wedding packages and wedding process works, and know how to handle a group.”

Sheldon suggested that agents interested in specializing in weddings and honeymoons “really look at their skill set before diving into romance travel; be detail oriented, patient and willing to become a friend to the couple and know geography.”

“We tell our members, especially if they’re new, that it’s very important to ask open-ended, probing questions during consultations, not just, ‘Where do you want to go and do you have a passport?”—Lisa Sheldon, Destination Wedding Honeymoon Specialists Association

She added, “Too many agents go into this and have no idea how far Tahiti is from New York City or that flying from California to St. Lucia most often requires an overnight on the East Coast of the U.S.”

Plenty of product knowledge and training opportunities are available, but it’s people skills, along with a positive, caring attitude, which are critical in dealing with clients, she said. “We tell our members, especially if they’re new, that it’s very important to ask open-ended, probing questions during consultations, not just, ‘Where do you want to go and do you have a passport?’”

Sheldon encouraged agents to elicit responses that “describe what the couple would call a perfect day on their honeymoon, how they envision their destination wedding day – surrounded by family and friends, on a rooftop in five-inch Blahniks or barefoot on a beach?” “Get couples to open up,” she advised. “We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Listen and then play it back to them.”

She also suggested that agents ask couples where they’ve traveled in the past. “A destination wedding or honeymoon may be the first trip they’ve taken, let alone the first trip they’ve taken together,” Sheldon said.

Travel advisors should also thoroughly familiarize themselves with two or three all-inclusive brands for destination weddings and honeymoons. “Then learn their wedding packages inside and out,” she said, in order to determine packages that suit a couple’s particular needs. “Do the research; there are thousands of resorts; you can’t be all things to all people.”

DWHSA members are both veteran agents and those new to romance travel. Consultants who complete its 55-module online course and take a test earn the Certified Romance Travel Specialist certification. The Master Romance Travel Specialist certification requires members to write a white paper and complete a choice of other requirements.

It also offers two to three weekly webinars covering social media, business-related topics, resort and tourism board presentations, and how to create presentations for your clients. All webinars are recorded and stored on the association’s members-only website for 24/7 viewing.

DWHSA’s three-day Romance Travel University, held in May, provides intensive training in which the presenters (other than the keynote speakers) are all association members. “Learning from peers has a great impact on someone when he or she knows it’s tried-and-true [advice] from an experienced agent,” Sheldon said.

There’s also annual specialized training on such topics as South Asian weddings and LGBTQ weddings, together with social media workshops, all of which are often conducted in the Caribbean and Mexico—prime romance travel destinations – along with romance travel-focused fams.

DWHSA offers members the use of its logo and monthly marketing content packets. By the end of the first quarter 2018, the association plans to introduce a consumer-facing website with members’ profiles listing their specialties and location.

DID YOU KNOW?

HONEYMOONS

—The honeymoon market is a $12 billion-a-year industry.

—There are an estimated 1.4 million U.S. honeymoon couples a year.

—99 percent of couples who opt for traditional weddings take a honeymoon.

—Honeymoons are booked an average of four months before the wedding.

—Couples spend an average of $4,466 on their honeymoon. Luxury honeymooners, comprising 15 percent of the market, spend approximately $9,954.

—The length of an average honeymoon is eight days.

DESTINATION WEDDINGS

—24 percent of nuptials are destination weddings.

—340,000 destination weddings take place each year.

—The destination wedding market accounts for $16 billion in annual spending.

—80 percent of couples who have a destination wedding have been married before.

—The average budget for a destination wedding is $28,000.

—The average number of guests at a destination wedding is 48.

Source: tripsavvy.com