How to choose the perfect travel niche.

The process of choosing a travel niche can seem daunting at first.

As you gain more experience as a travel agent, sometimes you don’t always pick your niche. Sometimes it picks you!

To prove why first hand experience is so crucial, an agent who specializes in luxury and river cruises, explained how he chose his travel niche: “I started selling river cruises about 10 years ago after going on one and fell in love with the concept. I just did some events focused on river and started selling more.”

Your niche evolves as you get started in travel and work your business. Everybody’s evolution is different. When I started, I worked every client who came to us. Now, I specialize.

Another agent's niche is ocean cruises – mostly Carnival Cruise Line. “It picked me, like it was meant to be. I sail on Carnival a lot, so it just came naturally to sell what I sail.” The lesson: Stick to selling what you know and love.

Step #1: What Are You Passionate About?

When conducting research for this report, we found that travel advisors who have mastered a travel niche unanimously agreed that the most important step for success is to choose a travel segment that reflects something you are passionate about.

Travel advisors can find themselves in a battle between what they love and what they think will be profitable. It is key to honestly enjoy your niche to be truly successful in it. Your passion will come through naturally in your conversations with clients.

You have to find something that you really feel passionate about, because that’s going to come very easy to you in the selling process. You’ll be able to paint that picture for the guest and the experience they’re going to have. That has to go hand-in-hand with experiencing that particular product or niche for yourself.

You have to find something that you really feel passionate about...

Find something you are passionate about and marry that with your love for travel. Just always remember to make decisions from a business perspective. Sometimes when you are passionate about something, your heart can influence your decision-making and not always for the good. So, find something you love but treat it as a business, not a fun hobby.

The discovery phase is the most important part of the process of choosing a travel niche. Start brainstorming about potential niches by making lists of your passions, namely hobbies/interests, and favorite destinations, and types of travel that you most enjoy.

What are you especially good at? What do you do in your free time? What do you have in-depth knowledge about?

Start mulling over ideas about how you can combine these passions with selling travel. If you are not sure what type of travel you like, start taking advantage of FAMs to try out different experiences, and then choose what you most enjoy and will sell well. You have to spend money to make money. Experience that cabin with a balcony so you can sell it from your personal experience.

Step #2: Who Will Your Clients Be?

Think about who your niche will appeal to.

Will they be families, singles, women, sports enthusiasts, honeymooners, church groups? What ages are they? What is their economic status? What is most important to them during their travels? Write out a profile(s) of the target audience(s) who would most likely want to engage in your chosen travel niche.

Step #3: Research the Opportunity

Search online to see if anyone else is already selling this travel niche. Make thorough notes about the products and services being offered, how much they charge, how they market, and the like. Is the market big enough to sustain another travel advisor specializing in this niche? Use the intelligence you gather to further refine your potential niche.

Step #4: Run the Numbers

It is critical to take the time to carefully consider the potential for profits from your travel niche. Analyze costs, commissions, fees, mark-ups, variable pricing. Run scenarios to determine how many clients you would have to serve; how many trips you would have to book monthly, quarterly, and yearly; and what your price points would have to be to hit your financial goals.

While love and passion are great motivators, it is important to think through the business reasons of the niche. Size of market, ease of finding the target market, supplier support, and so on.

Step #5: Test It Out

Send out some feelers to see if there is enough interest in the niche you are considering. Social media works well for this phase. You may even want to set up a PPC campaign for a month or two, linked to a landing page to collect information, to get a better sense of how the market might respond to your new offering. Also consider getting advice about the viability of the niche from a business consultant.

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To learn more techniques and how to grow your travel business, read more on our Pathfinder Series.

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