Since appearing on our October 2011 cover, Eric Maryanov’s All-Travel.com in Los Angeles has steadily shifted its business toward the luxury market and is now reaping $22 million in annual sales. “Luxury has expanded because of the greater exposure to our own preferred luxury partners and to new vendors that wanted to be a part of our growing luxury business,” he tells Luxury Travel Advisor. “While we have been focused on the luxury market for some time, we have doubled our efforts in seeking out that new client and staying engaged with our current clients.”
Maryanov, who is also chairman of the board for the Signature Travel Network, says that All-Travel.com is now expending greater efforts in contacting clients that have been dormant in its database through a formalized Reach Out program. “We have a gold mine that we are actively mining,” says Maryanov.
He considers this a reinvestment in customers he’s already spent a great deal of money attracting through the agency’s online marketing efforts. The Reach Out program might mean his travel advisors are picking up the phone to call old clients and prospects, but it also means there’s now a dedicated person who only does client reach out, proactively calling them when new promotions come into the marketplace. Maryanov deems this a success. “We have consistently seen clients that haven’t booked with us in over a year or two make bookings because of the agent reaching out to them. Staying in ongoing contact is of utmost importance. If we don’t do it, someone else will,” he advises.
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| October 2011 |
Those efforts are combined with Signature’s Client Reach program, which allows the agency to automatically stay in contact with clients through several touch points in the buying process as well as when they are on the trip and when they return, says Maryanov. “It’s not about just making the sale and moving on to the next. It’s about relationship building and increasing revenue through selling beyond the main component."
Other strategic moves include hiring sales people with strong selling capabilities, since experienced travel advisors can be hard to find, says Maryanov. “We can teach and train the [sales people about] the product.”
Maryanov just returned from China (he's shown here at the Great Wall), which included a Uniworld cruise on the Yangtze River as part of Signature’s top-producer's event. It had been seven years since his last trip and the changes were, as he notes, “astonishing.” He reports that he very much enjoyed the Waldorf Astoria in Shanghai, “which has combined an incredible design of modern sophistication with its rich history and culture of the famous Shanghai Bund.”
The Corinthia Hotel Budapest wowed him earlier this year. “What an amazing hotel, from the stunning main lobby with its grand staircase, to the Royal Spa and beautifully appointed suites,” he says.