Client testimonials are statements testifying to
the great job you did, or to the special
arrangement you made, or the excellent
customer care you practice. And the referrals
you receive also accrue to your provenance.
They constitute actual proof that your clients are
so pleased that they feel comfortable having
their friends and family use your services.
A travel agent’s job is to listen while the client
articulates their needs, desires, dreams and
wishes. If the client is not forthcoming, then the
travel agent uses their tried and true sales skills
to probe—to ask key questions—of the client.
And at various points in the conversation, the
travel agent can inject stories and specifically,
their experience at the destinations in which the
client has expressed an interest. At the
appropriate time, the photos and or videos can
be brought out to support the sale.
And then there are the more subtle aspects of
your travel provenance. In today’s world,
storytelling has been identified as a very
effective way to market travel destinations and
services.
The agent can in effect, use their provenance to
The story formula is:
Your Travels + Your Anecdotes and Experiences + Your photos +
Your Videos = Customer Confidence and Sales
have the client visit the destination, through
sales, visuals and words, while they are still in
your office or at the meeting. This is the ideal
outcome of any travel consultation.
If you write down your experiences in a
newsletter or blog or create a travel
presentation to show your clients then this too is
part of your provenance. Therefore if you add all
your credentials to all your activities, your
training, background, current job, people skills
and passion for travel, then you have a pretty
persuasive argument for the value and credibility
of your services: that is to say, your travel
provenance!
A travel agent with a strong provenance provides
confidence, support, enthusiasm and personability to the client, and exudes passion, comfort,
up-to-date information and a sense of reliability
and value. Provenance is not something you
acquire and then hide. It is something you need
to show every time you interact with a client, a
supplier and a colleague.
And how do you reveal your travel provenance
to your clients? No travel agent would or should
sit down with a client and roll out the list of
countries they’ve visited and ramble on about
how much experience they have had. This is a
deal breaker right from the start.
Shark Bay, Chichijima, Japan.
Time to be an exhibitionist… show them your
provenance. Your career will thank you for it.
Yamadera Temple – Checking my horoscope.
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Namahage Museum, Oga, Japan.