How Do Tour Operators Successfully Market and Sell Affinity Tours?

Posted by Peter Hilliard on October 31st, 2016

How Do Tour Operators Successfully Market and Sell Affinity Tours?

Find your passion and follow it – especially when you’re on vacation. Whether you love Star Wars, dancing, knitting, running, or politics, there’s likely a group of people out there who share your interests and want to travel together.

A recent article in Travel Weekly called affinity group tours the “sales pinnacle” for many travel agents. Although identifying, marketing, and selling to niche audiences can be difficult, the payoff is often rewarding (bringing in great commissions and high numbers of returning customers).

So what’s the secret to success in the affinity tour market? Travel Weekly shared some tips:

Identify a Niche for Your Tour

secret to success in the affinity tour marketOne of the first questions you’ll need to answer is what niche will you frame your affinity tour around?

In discovering what’s right for you, remember:

  • No affinity is too narrow – in fact having a small niche makes it easier to tailor your marketing to target the right audience.
  • If you need ideas, look towards the future. One Florida-based tour company, for example, recently began building up its cannabis travel business to Colorado.

Find Your Audience

Once you have your niche, you need to find people who share that interest.

  • Search out an existing community or group, preferably ones who already communicate often and have regular meetings.
  • Use social media platforms like Facebook to identify individuals based on their habits and likes and build a database of people with similar passions.

Keep in mind that it’s not always about appealing to the immediately obvious audience. One tour company based in Los Angeles organizes weeklong educational cruises for doctors. Its founders learned that to really make it a success, the key was to grab the attention of the spouses and families (rather than pitching directly to the doctors).

Niche Marketing for Your Tour

marketing your affinity tour:

Once you’ve identified your niche and audience, you can start marketing your affinity tour:

  • Promote a tour leader or escort who has credibility. They should share the same interest and have experience working with the community.
  • Create general ads based on that interest for online and trade publications. For example, promote Star Wars affinity tours without disclosing details on itineraries or prices. You will draw traffic to your website, where people can find more specific information about cruises, theme parks, or other adventures.
  • Invite people who have a large following in your niche and promote their presence. Use them to reach out to others who follow them.

Read the full article ‘Group think: Arranging affinity trips’ to learn more about how agents and agencies successfully sell to groups.

Though tour operators do need to invest a lot of time bringing together niche groups and organizing excursions and activities for them, the lucrative returns can make all the hard work worthwhile.

At DataTrax, our automated booking solutions are designed by tour operators for tour operators. Contact us today to learn how our products and services will make it easier to run and grow your business!

Do you want to discover risk-free how DataTrax’s solutions will benefit your business? Click here to start your free demo!

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Peter Hilliard

About Peter Hilliard

Peter Hilliard is the Founder, President, and CEO of DataTrax. He began his career as a tour bus operator with a single bus, until he realized that a better solution was needed for automating and tracking ticket sales. Led by Peter’s expertise in the tour industry and ticketing automation technologies, DataTrax has grown over the past 20+ years into an international leader in ticketing solutions.