Collette Worldwide is launching a targeted marketing campaign that involves helping agents find potential local customers.
The operator is using a third-party data analysis company to provide agents with details of people in their area that fit Collette’s customer base.
So far, 25 agent partners have signed up to the campaign over the next three months. Agents will be sent mini brochures of Collette’s top 20 tours, such as trips to the Canadian Rockies, to send to these customers.
General manager Peter Traynor said: “We want to help agents identify which of their customers would buy a tour – we are not after their databases to expand our direct business.”
The brochures and mailing lists will be sent out to agents in different regions every few months.
Daniel Sullivan, chief executive of Collette Vacations, parent company of Collette Worldwide, said the operator began a similar campaign with US agents in 2009.
“Some of the people [on the mailing lists] will already be customers but not ones they have offered a tour to,” said Sullivan.
The move is part of Collette’s bid to increase its UK business by more than 25% this year.
The operator, which pays more than 10% commission, is also pushing the message that its product is not discounted and that prices are all-inclusive. Average sales prices per passenger out of the UK are £2,500.