Business Development Managers are a critical link in the travel eco-system, promoting the products of their cruise line, airline, hotel chain or tour operator employer, while supporting the efforts of travel advisors who bring those products to the consumer. An effective BDM helps facilitate growth opportunities for both their companies and their strategic partners.
In this new series of articles, TravelPulse Canada profiles some of Canada’s leading travel industry BDMs in their own words, including advice on how you can make the most of this important relationship.
It may feel as though Jasmine Grant has been in our industry for ages, but her role as BDM for AIC Hotel Group, working on the All-Inclusive Hard Rock and Unico properties, is her first foray into travel.
Her first time on a plane was a trip to Vietnam when she was 16, where she spent almost three months of her summer between grades 11 and 12 and caught the travel bug. She worked high school and university jobs just so she could travel, taking a lot of solo trips “all over the place.”
Before joining AIC Hotel Group almost five years ago, her sales background gave her the transferable skills of customer service, on-point sales tactics and client relations and event planning, which all are major components of her job now. It’s clear why she’s an agent favourite – Grant has a way of seamlessly blending professionalism with an approachable, friendly demeanour.
TravelPulse Canada: You have worked in many sales capacities outside the travel industry. How does this background help you do your job better?
One of the few core components as a BDM is our relationships. Building those relationships with agents, maintaining those relationships, finding new ways to get in front of people. It’s also about connection. That’s kind of under the same umbrella as relationships, but maintaining that connection with people, however you can is so important.
Client relations - the relationship building and the client building; that's something that I really, really love. It's my favourite part of this job.
TravelPulse Canada: What are the most impactful changes you have seen in the travel advisor community over the past few years?
Travel agents have always been very important, but I think consumers now understand how valuable a travel agent is, and having an actual human backing them in the experiences that they're planning as opposed to a computer-based system that just doesn't get it can't hop on a phone. I think that we are moving more or back into, relying on a human to help us do things.
Coming out of COVID, the demand of travel has increased and so has the importance of spending valuable time with friends and family, which goes hand in hand with travel. I think people figured out that that is really important and take advantage of time you have with people because time is very fickle.
The travel industry is also very resilient, we should embrace change. Things like AI are not detrimental to our industry. You need shared experiences, you want to hear about the little cafe at the corner of this random street in whatever country you're in, AI is never going to be able to tell you that. I think it is a super useful tool that will only help the travel industry and help travel agents navigate their business a little bit better. They should be traveling be using tools like chat GBT to help them take a little bit of a load off of the day-to-day tasks.
South Asian wedding training at Hard Rock Hotel Vallarta, November 2023
TravelPulse Canada: Hard Rock is a distinct product. How important is educating advisors on what makes it unique?
I think the big separating factor from our hotels versus anything else out there is the vibe. And it's hard to sell that vibe unless you've been there or have been able to experience it yourself, but that's really the separating factor, the vibe.
When I first started, I asked my boss, ‘What is the target market?” And he said, Well, if you like music, you're going like our hotels.” And I think that’s it, the vibe is created from the music influence. There’s entertainment for everybody of all agents from morning to night and the music touches are everywhere; walking outside, in the lobby, the ambiance of everything in the hotel is very well done.
TravelPulse Canada: What are the most common requests/questions you get from travel agents?
One of the things that comes up pretty frequently is “how do you promote a higher end product? I don’t know how to push the sale over the edge.” We are a higher end product; we are not for every type of client because not every client has a budget to go to a HardRock all-inclusive resort.
I combat that with you’ll never know until you try. Don’t feel bad about pushing the envelope in that you can offer them a higher product – what’s the worst that can happen? They can say no.
Sharing your own experiences goes a long way as well; if you’ve had the change to experience our hotels, use those little anecdotes and stories and explain what they’re getting. All of our hotels have premium liquor brands, the food is incredible and our services really stand out. Those are all things you’re going to get with us, that you might not get at a lower price point.
TravelPulse Canada: How can advisors take advantage of the resources you offer in the most efficient way possible?
I really think agents need to experience our brands, so that you can speak about us from first-hand experience. If agents have an opportunity to come on a FAM with me, obviously that’s a great way to experience the vibe. Our FB group “Amped Agents” is my main method of communication and that's where I post things like events, FAMs, trainings and webinars and also where I share posts that they’re able to use as a selling tool with their clients. We of course also have the R&R program which is for room nights and is associated with our agents’ incentive tool that gives agents an opportunity to experience us.
Agents can always also reach out to me anytime, I’m just an email away.
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