Эксперт TravelManagers: туристические агенты теряют клиентов, не выставляя свое лицо в соцсетях

Travel advisors who avoid putting their own face in front of clients are missing a trick, according to TravelManagers marketing lead Tania Myles. Speaking with Travel Weekly at TravelManager’s conference in Hobart last week, Myles said outdated habits around social media, particularly a reliance on posting supplier-branded content instead of building a personal profile, were holding many advisors back. “I think this is probably the biggest mistake is not putting your face out there,” Myles said. “In today’s age, when there’s AI and online bookings and everything, your biggest marketing tool is yourself.” Myles said advisors often default to posting generic inspirational content rather than showcasing themselves. “That’s the sort of content that should complement what you do,” she said, “but your biggest marketing asset is the human element.” Myles pointed to research from TravelManagers’ own network showing a clear pattern among top performers. “We’ve done some webinars within our network… here are five travel agents who are nailing Instagram and what you can learn from them,” she said. “They put themselves in front of the camera all the time – because they’re building their personal brand.” She acknowledged that building a public profile takes commitment. “It takes a lot of effort and confidence,” she said, but stressed authenticity mattered more than polish. “People don’t want perfect,” Myles said. “They just want authenticity.” On converting social media followers into paying clients, Myles said automation could help start conversations but should never replace genuine connection. “There’s a lot of opportunity that agents advisors have to do a lot of automation in the background… to sort of have automations that start the conversations with people,” she said, adding that the goal was ultimately to “get to the point where they can have a conversation.” She said the strongest referral sources were rarely random followers. “It’s not usually just a random [connection],” Myles said. “It’s someone who’s come across them because their friends told them about them… their best clients are the ones that are their biggest advocates.” On the use of artificial intelligence in content creation, Myles said AI was useful for generating ideas but should not replace an advisor’s own voice. “I think AI is really good for idea generating, to get you started on things,” she said. “But you need to put your own authenticity and personality… the more you read travel content, the more you kind of go, that was AI.” Myles also addressed marketing to high-net-worth clients, saying luxury bookings were driven almost entirely by trust and relationships rather than social media reach. “It’s very unlikely to just put a post on social and suddenly you’ve got a $300,000 client,” she said. “It’s got to be very personal and networking-related.” Her advice for advisors wanting one concrete action to take: focus on email automation. “For our network, I would be suggesting the automations in our email system,” she said, pointing to underused tools such as birthday and travel-anniversary sequences that create “connection points that are outside of a booking sequence.”