Brief Tips and Advice for Inbound Report Subscribers Attending IPW—from NAJ, publisher of the Inbound Report and Host of the TourOperatorLand website (www.touroperatorland.com):
Q: Which collateral is best to leave behind for your appointments at the IPW?
A: One page (front & back) summary w/ photos and captions and e-mail them a pdf after the show
Q: When meeting a new buyer at IPW, what should you do?
A: Three things we recommend are:
- Inquire about destinations they currently near you and the gateways cities
- Determine which receptive tour operators they use and record that info for future use.
- Provide them with a list of Receptive Operators along with IPW booth numbers who are currently selling your product.
Q: If you meet an operator at IPW trying to sell you advertising in their brochure, what should you do?
A: If you don’t know them, act like a media buyer and ask them about distribution, price, reach, CPM, etc; and, if you’re at all interested and the price is right, try to negotiate for additional free space. If the operator is well known dropping subtle hints about excluding you if you don’t pay to play, ask them for numbers–room night or ticket sales data– as part of the deal.
Q: How soon should you expect to see business materialize from a “traditional” tour operators you are meeting for the first time?
A: Normally 2-3 years. You’re meeting them while they are preparing to release their 2018 brochures, promoting tours that will be sold in late 2018-early 2019 that will operate in summer 2019.
Q: When meeting with someone already familiar with your product or destination, what are the most important features you should to highlight?
A: What’s new/what’s changed in the past year that can help them make money
Q: You’re a hotelier and buyer requests rates for 2018-19 season, which you do not yet have, how should you respond?
A: Provide them with an estimated range of % change based on most recent industry forecasts and tell them
Q: What should I do if I encounter a buyer who’s English is not understandable?
A: Download the free “Speak and Translate” app. It has good voice recognition so you can speak a sentence into it and it will provide you with a voice translation.
Q: What else?
A: Visit NAJ’s TourOperatorLand booth (#1208) at IPW.
The NAJ Group, publishers of the Inbound Report, has joined with Explore Marketing and will be a part of the latter’s annual sales mission tour—both in the U.S. and abroad—that begins less than two weeks after IPW and concludes next January in New York City. The four missions, co-sponsored by NAJ’s 
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David Becker, CEO of Attract China, the New York-and-Beijing headquartered company that helps businesses and DMOs with marketing and promoting to the outbound Chinese travel market, will be a featured speaker at NAJ’s RTO Summit East next month (May 14-15) in New York.
Becker will discuss “Five Things You Need to Know about Digital Marketing to Reach Chinese FITs:
The NAJ Group, publisher of the Inbound Report, thanks 