Members of the Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO) are hoping to use its Specialist Travel Agent (STA) partners to market their top weekly deals direct to consumers.
Speaking at the AITO STA conference in Gdansk, Poland, panel member Sarah Archer said the association will ask its operator members to email their best weekly deals to AITO headquarters.
This will then be compiled into a list of 20 which will be sent to AITO STAs which they can then email directly to their own client databases.
Archer added: “The internet is a tool like anything else, and you should use it.”
AITO STA chairman Barry Moxley added he had seen the advantage of targeting customers with emails after a member of staff at his Traveltime agency recently sent out a marketing email to 150 customers at a cost of £5.
Two days later the business took a Caribbean holiday booking worth £5,000 from one of the targeted clients.