As the busy traveling season ends, one of the major marketing difficulties that most of the agents and tour operators suffer is dealing with the slump of the business. It is really hard to stand out of the crowd when it is already a d end of the season. Talking about the travel and hospitality industry, being occupied is the most accurate measure for the businesses to become the market leader. While there are many other factors like economic changes, demonitsation, GST, new laws, and legal obligations, affecting the travel industry, the off season factor hits the businesses in the gut, that too year after year.

Instead of avoiding these season drifts, it is time for the businesses to combat with them through right tools and make best of the off season sale. Wondering how that can be done, well here are 7 amazing tips that will help Agents and Tour operators to boost their sale during the off season

1. Mark your presence in the customer’s mind

The first and foremost mantra of encashing the off season business is to make a constant presence in your customer's mind. While during the season you would woo the customers using many tactics and on website promotions, off season is a great time to make your customers do business with you again. You must not let your customers fade away, rather should maintain touch with them through emails and messages.

Nowadays, social media is an incredible platform to keep your customers engaged. You can share relevant and enticing content with the customers and keep them informed. This will also offer you a chance to earn some reviews and testimonial. A good engagement with the customers means you need to have a personal approach towards your clients and keep them abreast of your deals and service offers.

2. Target oriented Off season promotions

You already have the knowledge of what types of destinations your customers prefer. Now, it is time to utilize that information and woo your customers for bookings. You can offer special discounts on the packages for those specific destinations. This can even be used for promoting tours, hotels and travel packages. To add the cherry on the cake, you can offer an added feature to your loyal customer for booking during the off-season; the feature can be anything from an extra night to free tickets of the major attractions of the destination.

3. Focus on your advertising strategies

Advertising is a great tool that must be used in a clever way during the off-season. You can target the local and budgeted travelers by offering them a tour with multiple pocket-friendly options. A low-budget leisure trip during the off season would be a great way to gauge the customer in your business funnel. You can also make level oriented advertising like marketing through the newspaper for a local tour and for an international, luxurious trip, using an elite magazine promotion. For online promotions you can promote your offers on Hellotravel.com by subscribing to B.A.P plan

4. It is time for an ultra niche

You cannot roam here and there finding customers during the off-season, rather we recommend carving an ultra-niche market that best affordable as per your capabilities is what experts suggest. You must target a special segment of customers and make the best business with them.

5. Cross promotional strategies will work best for you

So what if it is an off season, you can anytime reap the benefit of the many occasions that fall in the calendar. This includes festivals, special celebrations, sporting events, any concert or a film promotion to boost your sale. People have fantasies and there is nothing wrong in en-cashing them.

6. Business travelers are the ultimate targets

There is off season and on season for business travelers. They travel 365 days a year, so basically there is no slow down in the business if you target business travelers. Not only you can assist businesses for their official trips but also offer them facilities for trade fairs, concerts, and conferences. Many a times companies buy off season travel tickets for their staff as it is pocket friendly. You can target this big fish in the waters to keep your business boat sailing.

7. Pay attention to automation. Travel CRM is start.

Handling a business- no matter big or small is a tedious task demanding dedication, focus, and efforts. You cannot manage the entire business on your own and hiring people would be a burden. Why not choose automation? This will offer you sufficient time to focus on other crucial issues like finding the target market and focusing on promotional activities. There are lot of tools to explore out there to automate your work life. You can explore some third party websites/tools/apps on producthunt.com. Start of automation will happen from moving your team from excel to a smart CRM which will track everything for you and also tell you what to do next. HOOK is a smart travel CRM and costs just a smile.

You need to be innovative to stay abreast of the competition. Off season is a time that most of the business take a back seat and thus is an incredible opportunity for you to make new customers and grow your business. Do not wait further, as the off season approaches this year, take a pro active approach and win a great pool of customers.