by Jim Byers
Last updated: 7:07 PM ET, Thu June 10, 2021
The pandemic has been the worst of times for travel agents. But there also are opportunities.
G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip held a 75-minute chat and question-and-answer session with agents on Thursday as the company's Special Agent G program wrapped up its two-day program. It was their first-ever virtual program and their biggest ever and featured everything from webinars to cooking classes and more.
"In the short term you have an opportunity to be a source of information and transcend your product," Poon Tip told advisors. "When you're selling things to people all the time, that's not a meaningful relationship. You're just selling them stuff. So you should be constantly looking for ways to engage your customers or your clients and transcend what you do.
"This pandemic has allowed travel professionals to actually offer a professional service, because travellers are nervous, travellers need to be convinced to come back to travel, they need to feel safe," he said. "All this complaining the travel industry has done for so long about OTA's stealing business or people buying direct, this is the perfect opportunity for them to engage customers with information, and create a conversation that transcends your product and selling them stuff; starting to research what's happening with vaccines and vaccine rollouts, what people are doing on the ground … destinations that are opening faster. You become an authority and you give people that confidence."
Poon Tip said he and other travel executives have been making their case with Ottawa.
"The government seems to have no urgency, and I think that's our biggest problem. I think we actually stand fairly well as a country. Everyone wants to come to Canada, that's one thing for sure. I hear from people every day asking, 'When's Canada opening?'"
The way things stand, Poon Tip said he doesn't see a full recovery for a year or a year and-a-half.
Poon Tip also touched on some personal issues and career highlights, including the introduction of their non-profit Planeterra program In 2003, his first book, which became a New York Times bestseller, and, just this week, receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, which was done virtually and allowed his mom and other family members to watch.
That's pretty good for an immigrant from Trinidad who thought he would go into the music business before deciding to open G (then Gap) Adventures in 1990; back before laptops or cell phones or even fax machines existed.
Poon Tip teased agents by saying G Adventures is working on some "very, very big, industry changing and G Adventures changing projects" that he won't be able to talk about until later this year or early in 2022.
He told advisors it's a great time to book a trip as there are "deals, deals, deals," as well as unprecedented flexibility from airlines and tour operators. Space is limited, however, and prices will start to go up once the travel floodgates open.
Poon Tip said one trend he sees on the horizon is longer, slower travel in which people really relax and take a deep dive into the destination they're visiting.
There's also a growing number of people who want to book meaningful travel and not just be sold a package of amenities, he said.
David Green, G Adventures' VP Commercial, finished the two-day event in a purple tuxedo, thanking TravelPulse Canada for providing the virtual platform for the event and thanking loyal agents for supporting the company over the years.
The Japan National Tourism Organization, the Jordan Tourism Board and PROMPERú acted as lead sponsors.
Topics From This Article to Explore
