voyages to antiquity - Parallels Plesk Panel

COVER STORY
although many of its advisors are already
online at 6 a.m., responding to queries that
have come in during the night. Maryanov
himself is typically in at 6:15 a.m., a practice
that’s been in play for 20-plus years. The
agency also keeps weekend hours to respond
to online queries.
Over the years, Maryanov has seen a
pattern develop in terms of how bookings
play out on the weekly calendar. “Sunday
inquiries are in the early stages of planning
and tend to be a bit more upscale and for
the higher-end cruises. Saturdays tend to be
a little more of the premium sun-and-sand
market,” he says.
One important factor is that some of the
cruise lines now have booking engines that
are useable on Sunday; “not all of them do
and they aren’t open for reservations,” he
rues. “So, here we are wanting to work with
them and yet the vendor is not accessible.”
Another frustration is that some suppliers
end business hours at 5:30 p.m. EST, when
it’s still mid-afternoon in Los Angeles.
While Maryanov still remains very much
an expert at selling the luxury travel product,
he has transitioned over the years to focus
DAVID VAN NESS, VICE PRESIDENT OF ALL-TRAVEL.COM
David Van Ness, vice president of All-
Travel.com, has been with the agency for
21 years; he was introduced to President
and CEO Eric Maryanov by a mutual
United Airlines sales rep.
“Eric and I met and it was sort of
an instant connection that we had. I
DAVID VAN NESS
42 LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR | OCTOBER 2011
much more on marketing, along with All-
Travel.com’s vice president, David Van Ness.
Together, the two structure the agency’s position
in the marketplace and, in turn, drive
traffic to All-Travel.com’s advisors.
The agency uses ClientBase Plus heavily
to track new inquiries from prospective
customers. The advisor builds a profile
based on every conversation they have
with these customers, not all of whom may
actually take a booking. The accumulated
personal information is used to determine
which marketing collateral will be sent to
the prospect.
This targeted and focused approach often
pays off. Clients who have remained dormant
in the database for several years, but who
continue to receive e-mail promotions, have
called out of the blue to book a cruise. For
instance, recently, one such consumer called
up after receiving a promotion and booked
four cabins on Regent for a $100,000 sale.
While Maryanov and Van Ness are expert
marketers, they turn to their consortium,
Signature Travel Network, to leverage its
preferred supplier relationships as well as its
technology. (Both Van Ness and Maryanov
joked with him at the time that I didn’t
think I was going to be here longer
than six months,” Van Ness tells Luxury
Travel Advisor. He recalls that, early on,
Maryanov called him one day, excited
about the Internet, which was in its
fledgling stage. Van Ness ended up putting
up the agency’s first website using
Microsoft’s FrontPage. Over time, Van
Ness developed the site and was responsible
for its content. He was self-taught,
spending 12 hours a day on it, but it was
his passion.
The Internet is All-Travel.com’s core
marketing tool and responsible for driving
customers to the agency’s virtual front
door. After that, live travel consultants
create dream trips for clients, but the
web is a major force for the business,
which today has more than 13 websites—many
of them vendor-centric—
that it uses for online marketing.
The agency brought in a web designer,
have long sat on Signature’s technology committee.)
Signature, in fact, powers All-Travel.
com’s website. Maryanov and his team then
take Signature’s vendor offerings, slice and
dice them through the agency’s database and
feed them into its websites.
“So, in essence, we have our own unique
twist on taking advantage of their massive
amounts of technology and their promotions—add
the connectivity and personalize
it all,” says Maryanov.
All-Travel.com also taps into Signature’s
hotel program to create pre- and post-tour
itineraries for guests. The agency, courtesy
of Signature, has relationships with 600 preselected
hotels worldwide and touches about
75,000 to 85,000 people a week via e-mail
marketing.
The agency also makes use of city-by-city
information that Signature embeds in its
cruise offers so that its advisors are able to
speak to their clients as destination specialists
for each port. This enables them to arrange
private shore excursions.
“So, it’s using all those Signature tools in
conjunction with getting the agent to appear
as the superstar,” says Maryanov.
and another person to assist with e-mail
promotions. Additional marketing personnel
were also added.
These days, social media is also a
focus, says Van Ness. The agency has a
Facebook page with close to 9,000 fans,
where it posts four to five items a day:
travel tips, deals, recommended destinations
or inspiring quotes. It also has a
Twitter account where it posts similar
items daily.
Over the past 21 years, Van Ness and
Maryanov have worked together seamlessly
to build the business.
“Eric and I are very similar in terms
of micromanaging and perfectionism
and wanting things exactly the same
way; that’s one of the reasons I think it’s
worked so well for us all these years. It’s
sort of two heads but a single thought.
He can say one word and I know what he
is going to say next and vice versa,” Van
Ness tells Luxury Travel Advisor.