By Mary Brutscher
Former Host Agency Owner &
Travel Educational Instructor
cruisefacecruises@yahoo.com

Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center

An Interview With Scott Koepf

For this month's host focus, I spoke to Scott Koepf, travel industry veteran (and not a bad singer either!) who is currently the vice president of sales for Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center.

Mary Brutscher: Scott, you've been a name in the travel industry for quite awhile now, are well respected among your peers and travel agents throughout the country and you have provided some great insight into the sales aspect of the industry to new agents and veterans alike. With that in mind, please provide us with some insight into s and why you think it could increase an agent's sales.

Scott Koepf: After 25 years in the industry, I've learned that there are two businesses that travel professionals get themselves into — the marketing business and the selling business. Marketing is becoming increasingly more difficult for smaller agencies to compete with larger agencies, and more expensive than ever before.
It is difficult for travel professionals to remain competitive and continue to find new clients, and without customers, agencies cannot continue to sell travel. Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center is a perfect balance, offering independent agencies the ability to outsource their marketing, as well as other aspects of their business, so that the travel professional can focus on building their sales based on the specialties they want to sell.

MB: What sets Avoya Travel apart from its competition? What are the benefits of affiliating with Avoya Travel?

Scott: Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center offers a turnkey marketing solution unlike anything in the industry that enables travel professionals to do what they do best – sell travel.
There is a statistic out there that 65% of all travel business starts with Internet research. This means that consumers are going online to search for their vacation, so not only do they have more options and resources available, they are also more educated on products, pricing, and deals.
Today, it is almost impossible for independent agencies to compete in this online marketplace and have their websites be found by consumers. Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center is unique because travel professionals can benefit from world-class, competitive marketing without incurring the cost, or spending the time.
We also provide every independent agency with a private label Web site, which shares the content with and looks just like our AvoyaTravel.com site, except it displays the travel professional's contact information.
Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center offers many benefits in addition to our turnkey marketing, which sets us apart from our competition. One example of benefits is the fact that Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center has been affiliated with the American Express Travel Representative Network for over 20 years, which offers many benefits to our independent agencies and their customers, including being able to offer clients the option to purchase their vacation using their American Express Membership Rewards Points!
Additionally, Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center's network of independent agencies also have access to our award-winning, patent-pending Agent Power™ technology to operate their business more efficiently.
The integrated Web-based program offers our Independent Affiliates improved CRM resources, on-demand supplier and business trainings, Internal social media to help independent affiliates connect with each other, easy commission tracking, and more. Commissions are paid to our network via automatic deposit on a weekly basis and we are the only host agency in the industry to pay weekly.

MB: Prompt payment of commission has always been a major concern for travel agents and many have faced difficulties collecting commissions owed them. It's fantastic to know that those commissions are paid not only promptly, but on a weekly basis as well!
What do you perceive as the agent's biggest obstacle with today's economy and how can Avoya Travel help agents overcome these obstacles?

Scott: The biggest obstacle today for travel professionals is finding new customers. Good travel agencies have repeat and referral clients, however most agencies need more customers to continue to grow and prosper.
Every agency needs new leads; however, it is competitive and expensive, both in time and money, to find these new customers. Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center helps entrepreneurs overcome this obstacle with its turnkey marketing, which allows travel agencies to gain the time and money back that they would have spent themselves on marketing so they can spend it working leads and closing sales to ultimately make more money.

MB: I like that you use the word entrepreneurs to refer to these agents because that is exactly what they are. This is a business venture (and adventure) just like with any other industry and has its share of stumbling blocks and issues to overcome.
I've asked other hosting programs abut one particular issue that continues to be a major concern: When agents affiliate with a host who is out of their area, they fear they will miss out on local events, such as supplier training functions, ship inspections and so forth.  How would you address these worries? 

Scott: Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center has hundreds of Independent
Affiliates located all over the United States and beyond. We haven't found this to be a concern in our network because we have support staff specifically assigned to working with our preferred suppliers. Our strong relationships with these suppliers enable us to make training, FAMs, ship inspections, special supplier events, and more available to our network of Independent Affiliates on a continuous basis.

MB: Does Avoya Travel offer marketing programs for their agents?

Scott: This is a good question and most host agencies would answer it with a yes. Many host agencies would also explain how the programs offered help travel professionals reach their own databases and market to this list of customers. With these models, ultimately the travel professional still has to find the customer.
Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center has an opportunity like no one else! While our Independent Affiliates may have their own book of business, it isn't necessary because we also offer new clients through our Live Leads™ program.

MB: Some agents have tightened their belts even more these days and some may consider Avoya Travel and other large hosting programs beyond their reach. How would you answer these agents?

Scott: Our business model is based on Shared Success and not on charging multiple fees for using various aspects of our program. Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center has one initial flat-rate start-up fee, which is very reasonable. We have a Shared Success model of doing business and are not fee-based. Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center is looking for entrepreneurial-minded professionals who want to run their own travel business. We're not interested in hobbyists and travel agents that aren't serious about selling vacations. For dedicated travel professionals, when they affiliate their independent agencies with Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center, the time and money they save in marketing and building their client data-base is unmatched – largely because of our investment in marketing for Live Leads™, which are new customers.

MB: Does Avoya Travel accept new agents and if not, how would a prospective agent qualify, such as time requirement or travel school?

Scott: Avoya Travel/America's Vacation Center's current model isn't designed for new travel agents. In our existing model, we'd like to have experienced travel professionals with a proven sales history because we have customers today ready to be connected with our Independent Affiliates, and we need them to be ready to close sales.