What It Takes To Succeed In Selling Destination Weddings, Part One

If it takes a special disposition to be a travel agent who handles something as personal as someone’s vacation time. But specializing in destination weddings will challenge that temperament exponentially, experienced agents say. In the end, though, the personal and professional benefits make it all worthwhile.

“I really love love,” said Jennifer Doncsecz, president of VIP Vacations in Bethlehem, PA. ”I watch (the 2004 movie) The Notebook and cry. What we do is very sacred; couples are going to look at their photos for a very long time. You need to want to make a difference.”

“You need a certain set of skills to do this,” says Lisa Sheldon, executive director of the Destination Wedding Honeymoon Specialists Association (DWHSA) in Janesville, WI. “We get some agents who say, ‘I just don’t think I am cut out for this.’  But I’m in my 30th year as a travel agent, 17 years in romance and weddings. You become a psychiatrist, surrogate mother to the bride, sometimes the mother of the groom. You really build these relationships with them.”

One of the keys to success, Doncsecz said, are “super organization skills. Try to organize 200 people to go to an Indian wedding.”

Most experienced agents said it’s best not to take on more than one wedding per agent per month if you want to deliver superior service and keep your own sanity. “It’s hard to stay balanced sometimes. Guests are calling. The mother may be calling you asking you why you booked something. I keep a spreadsheet of every booking and regularly send it to the bride to give her peace of mind.”

If you start to detect that a couple may be impossible to please, Doncsecz said, you might not want to take them on as a client. “If the bride and groom are hard to work, everyone else in the family and wedding party will be hard to work with. People attract the same kind of people,” she said.

And sometimes the answer is to not offer them a destination wedding at all.

Diane Bean, owner of Off on Vacation in Bangor, ME, said she asks “What is your dream?” Then she makes it her job to make that dream come true. “I have one wedding where the groom is in his 40s and the bride is in her 20s. It’s his second marriage. He doesn’t want the traditional wedding. She wants a destination wedding. I told them it would be better if they had the wedding at home, and go on a honeymoon.”

Kitzia Morales Torres, co-founder of Cancun Wedding Experience, agreed. “If you don’t see that they are 100% sure that they want a destination wedding, offer them alternative choices.”

Ask and listen, and consider the trends
Longtime experts also spoke extensively about the importance of listening skills.

“You have to work with their individual personalities. You have to ask questions,” said Doncsecz. One of her first questions is, “Why do you want to have a destination wedding?”

“Sometimes you learn some surprising things. You might hear, ‘I never wanted to be a princess.’ Every couple is different.”

“Ask those deep probing questions to find out exactly what they want,” Sheldon said.

“One things ask is ‘What kind of ceremony do you want?’ ” said Melissa Varela, owner of Modern Romance Travel in San Ramon, CA. “’Do you want a cultural ceremony that reflects the location? What is the view you are looking for?’ They want beautiful photographs of the ceremony. Sometimes they want incredible amounts of color. Then I might guide them to that color naturally. I’ll tell them, ‘You can spend $1,000 to provide that artificially, or you can book in the springtime instead.’ ”

While brochures and Instagram feeds may reflect idyllic beach weddings, many couples are open to alternatives, said Varela. “People are wanting less traditional locations, fewer beach weddings and less standing in the sand,” Varela said.

Sheldon said she is finding growing interest in rooftop terraces that offer the popular ocean views.

And many couples are looking for something cultural, said Morales Torres. “There are some amazing destinations in Mexico for that. You could combine the beach wedding with a colonial destination like Merida, where they can experience Mayan culture and stay at a hacienda.”

Sharon Campbell Little, president and owner of the Wedding and Honeymoon Travel Group in Los Angeles, said another trend is for the grooms to get involved in event planning. “I did four destination weddings in 2016 where I dealt with only the groom for the entire 10 months,” she said.

Clients and suppliers share the love and business grows
Breaking into destination wedding travel planning can be difficult. Most new agents start by getting certified with different tourism boards, tour operators and all-inclusive resorts, and then attend bridal shows.

If you do attend bridal shows, it is critical that you follow up with any sales leads, experienced agents said. “Our statistics show that 49% of agents don’t follow up on their bridal show leads, so you’re already ahead if you’re proactive,” Sheldon said. “I know one agent who texts every single sales lead before leaving the parking lot of a bridal show.”

“Millennials love to text. I tell Millennials, ‘I’ll text you before I call you. This way you know my number.’ They won’t pick up the phone if they don’t recognize your number,” Doncsecz said.

“The key is to keep in contact with them,” Bean agreed. “It might take eight follow-up e-mails and texts before they reply. And remember letters in the mail? Sometimes you may have to send a letter.”

Campbell Little likes to work with a handful of preferred tour operators “who have a really great understanding of our business model, so we work together in great unison for whatever marketing and sales plans we put together. And some of the destination tourist boards are becoming very savvy in their training, and upon completion we are listed on their webpages as certified travel planners for that place. We have had some great consumer referrals from this. We also work closely with our host agency and we receive great consumer referrals from them under their new consumer connect marketing program.”

“When an agent builds a rapport with a romance travel client, the lifetime value of that client can be immeasurable,” Sheldon said. “You are building that relationship with them, and they trust you, they feel better giving your name out. That’s one thing about romance travel; you can always build your business starting out with one client.”

“Every bride this year knows three more brides getting married within the next two years,” Campbell Little said. “We try to tap into their networks of friends and family members. Finally we always continue to build on our knowledge and expertise by taking new certifications, visiting new resorts and destinations, and getting educated from our vendors.”

For an in-depth education on how to build a destination weddings niche, we hope you will join us at Travel Marketplace 2017, a unique peer-to-peer learning experience TMR will be hosting in Toronto, Canada, June 13-14. Stay tuned for more details on our Destination Weddings expert panel. Put in on your calendar and come meet the TMR team!