Tempt your clients to book with Emily Ashwell’s guide to the best-value add-ons
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You’re probably well-versed in the benefits of selling add-ons: they’re a great way to boost the overall value of a sale and can really help your clients make the most of their holidays.
But when you’re selling, what can you do to clinch a sale? One of the best ways is to highlight the ‘extras’ that add-ons can provide. Getting something that people buying tickets on the door don’t – such as free days at theme parks, behind-the-scenes tours of museums or queue jumping at busy attractions – is a real incentive and can be the persuasive nudge that prompts a customer to spend money with you rather than booking in-resort.
We’ve looked at the different add-ons on the market and asked suppliers to pick out their best offers, so wherever your client is heading on holiday, you’ll be able to sell them an add-on that will make their trip extra-special.
THEME PARKS
If your clients are heading Stateside, don’t even think of booking a holiday to Florida without selling theme park tickets – there are some great deals around at the moment.
For a limited time, Do Something Different is offering a 2013 Disney early ticket offer where visitors get 14 days for the price of seven. It includes access to all six Disney Parks for 14 days, Disney Fast Pass and unlimited use of the Disney Transportation system for £272 per adult, £251 per child.
Attraction World’s best-value theme parks ticket for Florida is called The One. It offers unlimited admission to all the main Florida theme parks for 14 days, including Walt Disney World Resort, Universal Orlando Resort, SeaWorld and Legoland. There’s also free transport to and from Legoland and Busch Gardens and a $10 voucher to spend at Planet Hollywood, all for £484 (child £449).
Time spent queuing to get into a theme park is time wasted, so it’s worth persuading clients to pick up tickets in advance so they can skip the line. Isango offers advance tickets for Siam Water Park in Tenerife from £28.61 per adult, and Essential Travel’s PortAventura one-day park ticket starts from £39 per adult and £34 per child.
CULTURE
Have you ever been to Paris in the spring? If so, you’ll have some idea of the length of time people queue to get into museums such as the Louvre.
You can solve this problem by offering customers some of the fantastic cultural add-ons that mean they can skip the queue at the museum, get a behind-the-scenes tour or even a free guide.Travelcube offers the ‘Skip the Line: Louvre Museum’ half-day tour for €51 per person. It’s a small group tour with an expert English guide.
Isango says its best-selling cultural destination is Rome. It offers a skip-the-line Vatican and Sistine Chapel Tour, including free audio guide to the city of Rome, from £50.29 per person.
In Florence, the Uffizi Gallery’s Vasari Corridor is open only to small groups accompanied by expert guides. Do Something Different offers an excursion combining fast-track entrance to the Uffizi and guided tours of the museum and the Vasari Corridor from £72 per adult and £36 per child.
A destination’s cuisine is all part and parcel of its culture, but how can clients tell which of a line of restaurants is the best? Intrepid Travel’s new Food Adventure programme takes the guesswork out of the equation. As part of its Urban Adventure range, the adventure specialist offers food-focused day tours of many cities, with expert guides taking clients to the best street food stalls and demystifying the produce at local markets. Some tours include cooking classes or dinner with a local family.
Marrakech Tajine Cooking Class starts with a quick Arabic lesson, shopping at a market and then a cooking class, and costs £41.36.
CITY SIGHTS
City breaks are all about packing as many sights as possible into a few days. Help your clients out by selling them tours that provide easy transportation between the major sights, fantastic discounts and benefits such as off-the-beaten track tours or queue jumping tickets.
Attraction World has a New to New York tour, which has been especially created for first-time visitors. There’s a 48-hour hop-on hop-off bus, must-sees including the Empire State Building Observatory, Top of the Rock and dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, as well as a free Circle Line Cruise, New York Waterway Cruise and free entry to the Museum of the City of New York. It is priced at £99 adult, £89 child.
Until March 31, clients going to Australia can get a free day tour of Sydney (pictured below) when you book them on Travelcube’s Blue Mountains and Hunter Valley tour, which costs £178.
Isango has a Paris Hop On Hop-Off tour that includes an extra day free for £26.01 per adult. There are four routes and more than 50 stops. It also has a Behind the Scenes at the Eiffel Tower tour, from £19.51, that takes visitors to see the inner workings of the monument, including engine room and old military bunker – all not normally accessible to the public.
SHOPPING
Shopping deals have huge appeal, particularly for visitors to the US who are looking to pick up designer brands at bargain prices.
Premium Outlets has 61 shopping centres in the US, where guests can normally get a discount of between 25% and 65% and it sells commissionable packages through agents. For example, its flagship shopping centre, Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, north of New York City, has a daily coach service with a complimentary VIP Coupon Book offering discounts worth hundreds of dollars and is commissionable through Grayline New York. Other outlets are near Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle.
In Europe, at the Chic Outlet Shopping Villages – the company behind Bicester Village – agents can book commissionable Chic Packages and there are two particularly good deals on offer at the moment to Kildare Village, Dublin, and Fidenza Village, Milan.
A Shop and Explore in Kildare option costs €60 and includes return coach travel from central Dublin, a VIP day card and a €50 Gift Card and entry to the Irish National Stud, Horse Museum and Gardens. Meanwhile the Shopping With Da Vinci package in Milan costs €75, including a guided tour of Milan, guaranteed visit to Da Vinci’s Last Supper at the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie and shopping at Fidenza Village.
ACTIVE
Even the most pedal-friendly client is unlikely to drag their own bicycle with them on holiday, but they would enjoy a quick pedal around a city. Searching for a reputable cycle hire shop once in a city will eat into time better spent free-wheeling, so do the leg-work in advance by booking a cycle tour like Attraction World’s Bangkok by Bike tour, from £34.
Booking in advance can give clients access to unexpected activities they might not have discovered were possible – for example, Intrepid Travel offers Urban Adventures’ day tours exploring cities by kayak. The Melbourne Moonlight Kayak tour costs £68.18 and includes a fish-and-chip dinner.
Some activities can put pressure on families’ pockets, so keep an eye out for deals that could save them cash. In Whistler, Canada, Do Something Different has a free child offer on its Mountain Explorer by ATV tour. The package includes a two-hour tour of Blackcomb Mountain on an all-terrain vehicle – similar to a quad bike – with a guide, and costs £101
