January sales at TrekAmerica and Grand American Adventures beat all previous records for the month in the sister brands’ 42-year history.
Bookings across both brands was up by a third (33%) compared to January 2013 as the sister operators worked more closely with agents.
The small group adventure company cited new business strategies for the upswing, including ensuring tour costs are competitive, refining SEO strategy, working more closely with agents and taking a new approach to marketing and PR.
A core business focus has been to increase and improve the way that both brands work with UK agents.
Senior marketing manager Hayley Griffiths said: “We’ve really evaluated our existing relationships and ensured that we are working with agents more closely than ever before.
“We’ve hit the roads and toured the UK and Europe to educate agents on TrekAmerica and Grand American Adventures and have introduced a brand new online training platform in conjunction with Online Travel Training.
“Agents can quickly use the platform to become brand experts by testing their skills and knowledge on five simple modules. Each module aims to help improve the understanding of our products and equips agents with useful skills and information they can use to sell the destination as well as the concept of small group adventures.
“We have also decided to continue our exclusive agent incentive, which offers any agent who books its clients onto a TrekAmerica or Grand American Adventures tour the chance to enjoy one of our mini-adventures, totally free of charge.
“We want our agents to experience our brand and these mini-breaks provide a perfect opportunity to do just that. All of these initiatives, combined with a refreshed business and marketing strategy, have helped us to achieve our biggest ever sales month in 42 years.”
The new marketing and PR strategy involved refreshing communications and revamping both company brands, as well as implementing new marketing initiatives for agents, such as brand and destination specific videos, blog posts that give live stories on the road, destination advice and customer reviews on tour pages. There has also been a big push on social media through PR communications and acquisition campaigns.
Griffiths added: “We’ve enjoyed growing both brands over the last few years and felt that it was a good time to refresh our approach to marketing and communications.
“Integrating social media and blogs into our marketing strategy was always one of our key objectives and we are delighted with the results so far. Our current campaign, #Blog4Trek, was launched last week and is already generating a lot of interest in the blogosphere.”