Our Constant Search
By Hank Schrader, USMA ’71, Europe Destination & Europe River Cruise Expert
The travel business could be defined as a constant search.
What is the search for? What are we looking for?
We are looking to match 3 things to help you, our clients!
We are looking for the right product or trip, at the right time, to the right person.
So, today, let examine what our search means for you.
Our Business Structure
Visit Dream Destinations, LLC is a luxury leisure travel company.
Our mission is to provide customers with the highest quality, expertly planned domestic and foreign leisure travel with a focus on Luxury Cruises, European River Cruises and European Vacations for groups and individuals. We exist to attract and maintain customers.
We want to become the trusted travel advisors of choice for discerning travelers who want a good value for their travel budgets
The Right Product or Trip
A trip on a river cruise is almost always the right trip for many. This is the Rhine River Gorge.
Our slogan says it all—“Savor Life . . . make memories . . .Visit Dream Destinations! Your journey begins here!” As the slogan implies, we find the right trip for each client that they will remember for a lifetime.
We are small enough to give our clients personalized service, yet big and experienced enough to them the right trip!
Finding the right trip or product vendor requires a lot of knowledge and often some detailed research on our part. The only way we will get it right is to listen very carefully to you.
In travel agent jargon, it is known as qualifying. But to us, it is listening to what you want and what you do not want.
To get started we need at least 4 things from our potential clients. They are: 1) a trip destination or transport method in mind, 2) a budget, 3) a date for travel and 4) is a good fit for us and you.
Now the more specific you can get, the better trip we can design.
Our goal is to create exceptional trips for our clients. We will accomplish this by applying our 3 core values to the sales process. Our core values are trust, knowledge and care.
We establish rapport with you by developing trust—we are who we say we are. This leads to common ground, good communication and relationships. We try to under promise and over deliver.
We next ask a lot of questions and listen—what exactly does the client want? What have been the best previous trips? And perhaps the most important—Why do they want to go?
Now we apply our knowledge and research skills—in short, our clients learn—do we know what we are talking about?
Matching the right person to the right trip at the right time is crucial for our success.
Throughout this whole process, you should be thinking--do these folks of Dream Destinations care about me and have my best interests at heart?
We want to form a partnership with you—not just sell you something.
In simplest terms we inform, handle questions and then you decide.
We also respect you, our client—there are boundaries, we use your preferred method of communication and never are pushy.
The Right Time
Timing often is everything in the travel business. It is not uncommon for folks to ask us to help them plan a trip after 9 to 18 months after they have found about our services. Some even 3 years or more after finding out about us.
Why? It is simple—travel is usually not an impulse buy! You need time to plan for a vacation window, perhaps save up for the trip, or make sure it happens on just the right time, like a milestone time or festival.
So, even after they decide to go there will be some lag time—we usually book trips 9 months or more before they go on their vacation.
These four pictures emphasize the right time—two anniversary tours of D Day we led:
Our 70th Anniversary of D Day Tour in 2014.
Part of our 75th Anniversary Tour of D Day tour on 6 June 2019—we helped guide 33 on this once in a lifetime trip
The Right Person
No matter how hard we try, we can’t be everything to all people. So we target certain travelers.
Our 3 most targeted clients are potential river cruise clients, 7 day or longer ocean cruise clients and European tour clients.
Here are the profiles of a good match for our #1 client, River Cruiser
1. 60+ but we see this trending lower
2. Many retired
3. Enjoy small villages or historic sites
4. $80,000 median income—usually higher
5. Visited Alaska/Hawaii/Europe
6. Taken a 7 day or more ocean cruise but really would like to try a smaller ship
7. Well-travelled
8. Will spent $200+ a night per person if value is there
9. Milestone life event—significant anniversary or birthday
10. Like wine/food
Here are 10 pictures of the right people—all have used us to plan their river cruises:
Here is the profile for our # 2 client Luxury Ocean Cruiser
1) Median income $97,000—could be lower on shorter cruises
2) College grads—76%
3) Median age 40—48%
4) Retired—20%
5) Married—79% and often like to bring their family on the cruise or travel with friends.
Here are 5 photos of some folks we have helped take ocean cruises:
Our # 3 Client, European tour client, usually has the same profile as our river cruise client. Here are some photos of tour clients:
Client Retention
We have 4 areas we concentrate on to enhance our client retention. They are:
1. Communication. We will contact each customer after each trip for feedback & follow up on these results. We will send a hand-written note to every person who books with us before & after the trip.
2. Content. Our website, blogs, PDF slide shows are of exceptional quality and reflect our brand and advertising.
3. Consistency. We will follow up 100% on our promises—we will return calls and e-mails as promised.
4. Create Community. We try to blog each week with high quality topics that help our clients learn more about the travel opportunities we can provide them.
Our website has over 10,440 visitors this year (as of today 19 November 2020), so it must have something worthwhile for you-- either content or inspiration—hopefully both!.
About 2,849 visit our home page and then over 7,591 have gone to another page on the website. This means they find our content worthy of a second look or they went directly to the desired page from a web search.
By far, our Best Europe River Cruise Routes Guide (2,849 visitors) and our Europe River Cruise Comparisons 2020-2021 (1,967 visitors) are the two most visited pages on our site. It is a small wonder, because we feel these are as good a resource as is available to most folks on the worldwide web.
Why don’t you read them now? Here are the links:
We want to turn our best clients into lifetime clients. We hope you feel the same about us!
My Final Thoughts
Our goal has always been to help you travel better and get more value for your money. The right trip, at the right time for the right person.
We would like to thank those of you who have trusted us for their travel needs and look forward to helping you again and anyone else in the future who might need our help.
When you are spending your hard-earned money for a vacation, you want an advisor who can match you with the right trip. You want someone who will understand your expectations and fuel your anticipation (or excitement) to get you the best possible trip experience. And, you want someone who can help you with the decision making process. We think we have all these qualities.
Whatever your Dream Destinations are, we are here to help you get the best possible vacation based on what is important to you! We will provide you high quality, expertly planned travel. Please give me a call 713-397-0188 (Hank) or email me at hschrader@dreamdestinations.com. We want to help you: Savor life…make memories…Visit Dream Destinations! Your journey begins here!
HANK is a certified Western European Destination Specialist (DS) who has been traveling to Europe for 49 years. He is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC), conferred by the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA). This recognized expert in cruise and leisure travel is a retired Army Officer, and taught World Geography for 8 years. He is a `71 graduate of West Point and has earned 2 master’s degrees. His other Certifications:
AmaWaterways River Cruise Specialist
Viking River Cruise Specialist
Scenic River Cruise Specialist
Emerald Waterways Specialist
Avalon Waterways Specialist
Brit Agent
