Here is an example of the traveler experience map, from dreaming to review. This is a fast way to track how information flows through the business and discover crucial value blockers within current operations, both IT systems and work procedures.
Travel Agency – Fararsnið
Challenge
Fararsnið is a small travel agency focusing on slow travel. They specialize in carefully curated itineraries for travelers that appreciate a variety of recreation at a relaxed pace.
This vision was born out of the decades-long experience of the husband-and-wife team, Ágústa and Jón Karl. They wanted to offer a more enjoyable and memorable experience than the typical hectic schedules with 12 hour bus-rides and daily hotel changes.
Their flagship product, Gourmet Walks along the Mediterranean countryside quickly proved very popular.
Sales were quite successful from the start, due to the strong personal network and outstanding reputation they had built over the years. They even enjoyed repeat business from groups seeking to explore new destinations with similar itineraries.
The challenge was finding a way to encourage sales and expand their target audience beyond the personal network, to shorten the sales period and reduce operational risk.
Project
To gain a full understanding of the challenge, we used our Value Blockers Discovery method to uncover what was causing the long sales period.
Ironically, we discovered the traveler had already spent a lot of time contemplating their next vacation, before they contacted us. But they were still not ready to make a decision yet, feeling they needed more time to consider before making a booking decision.
We created a strategy to meet the traveler earlier in the process. Our main tactics involved raising awareness through social media posts and nurturing relationships with engaging travel stories and itineraries in our newsletter.
Establishing trust was imperative, so we used the 80/20 rule of mostly engaging with fun, useful information and only occasionally switching into sales gear. We also rewarded our newsletter subscribers with pre-sales.
Outcomes
Value Jumps is our term for quick-wins that are also foundations for long-term success. In this project we found several under-utilized resources and used them for immediate value:
- Started a weekly newsletter with 500 customer email addresses already on hand.
- Developed a regular schedule of writing traveler stories for the newsletter, explaining the reasoning for choices made in the itineraries.
- Used the same stories as content for our social media posts, 3 times a week.
- Divided the workload into 3 roles; content writing, editing and scheduling, so each team member was able to organize their work in batches.
By taking a customer-centric approach and focusing on the overall traveler experience, we developed a comprehensive sales system that incorporates digital marketing strategies tailored to each stage of the customer journey.
This Sales System has proven to be critical, giving the following outcomes:
- Shorter sales period from 10 months to 3 months.
- Reduced operational risk, resulting in all tours being sold out.
- Mailing list has now grown to 2000 subscribers.
- Raise prices, leading to a 60% increase in profit margins.
It also provided a lot of clarity for the team, what to prioritize and how to divide up the work.
Testimonial
As a satisfied customer, I highly recommend working with SPONTA to build trust and improve the sales of a small tourism business.
The effectiveness of their marketing tactics surpassed my expectations. I would have never thought of these approaches myself, but they have proven to be game-changers for my business. – Jón Karl Einarsson
SPONTA 