Four Gold and one Silver for its one-of-a-kind initiatives, turnkey marketing tools and fully funded exclusive promotions for its franchisees
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (October 26, 2022) – Travel Weekly, a top travel industry trade publication, recognized Dream Vacations with five Magellan Awards. Many of the winning entries are programs that are industry firsts and unique to the Dream Vacations travel agency franchise.
“Our marketing team’s creativity and the new easy-to-implement marketing tools they create in support of our franchisees and associates consistently receive outstanding feedback from our network of travel advisors,” said Drew Daly, senior vice president and general manager for Dream Vacations. “Support in marketing a business is one of the most important ingredients and franchisor can provide its franchisees and to see our marketing team recognized for their innovation with these Magellan Awards is a true honor.”
Gold Winners
The Associate Websites, a first-of-its-kind in the industry, launched in March 2022 as an innovative marketing resource. The program provides associates with their own dedicated websites so prospective and current clients are not directed to their franchise owner’s site. This gives associates more freedom to market themselves as the agent of record, while also allowing them to increase their productivity and grow their business footprint. In addition, these sites allow customers to subscribe to the associate’s emails and sweepstakes — all identifying the associate as the agent of record.
The Dream Vacations Advisor Program matches people who want to become independent travel advisors with existing, successful travel agency franchise owners. Because of the program, people with a passion for travel can become independent contractors without the responsibility of business ownership. This creates a dynamic relationship benefiting both parties and fostering growth for the Dream Vacations franchise owner.
Dream Vacations is the only travel franchise to fund exclusive offers on behalf of its franchise owners and has fully funded $4 million annually in exclusive promotions, national branding, and marketing programs to help its network of travel advisors grow their business. An example of this is the ‘Spring Ka-Ching’ promotion which launched in April 2022 and was available on cruise, resort and villa vacation bookings and it was fully funded on behalf of franchise owners. This is the first time the travel agency franchise has run a promotion this long that includes all three vacation types — cruise, resort, and villa. In addition, all fully funded promotions are combinable with travel supplier offers, creating a rich reward to the customer while giving the agent with a marketplace advantage.
Automated Marketing for Social Media, Reviews and Email help franchise owners and their associates easily market to their clients and prospective customers. In addition, advisors can make data-driven decisions when adjusting their marketing strategy and messaging to increase their customer engagement.
The social media and reviews management tool provides advisors with an automated social media program with pre-scheduled social media posts in three categories – contemporary, luxury and engagement. As an added bonus, the program also posts content and curates reviews on Google My Business, which has proven to increase organic search results and lead generation. Posts are personalized with dynamic content, unique for each agency, such as the advisor’s email, phone number or individual website, and are tailored to suit each social media platform’s user experience for increased engagement.
“In marketing, we pride ourselves on being Built for Growth — which means innovation never stops,” said Alicia Linden, director of marketing for Dream Vacations. “We’re constantly looking to improve our marketing and deliver effective tools to help our agents grow their business by engaging with customers, generating leads and driving bookings.”
The email and digital marketing program is integrated with the franchise’s award-winning proprietary Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This means advisors can seamlessly send extremely targeted on-demand emails to their database based on segmentation data such as location, past travel preferences, repeat customers, etc., as well as automated emails for drip campaigns or milestone events such as birthdays and anniversaries which helps develop customer loyalty.
Silver Winner
The Quarterly Sweepstakes are implemented and fully funded on behalf of franchise owners where their customers can enter to win a free vacation. Through the automated and turnkey program, the franchise has given away a variety of vacations including river cruises, luxury villa stays, cruises, resort vacations and more. The sweepstakes take place once every quarter and are promoted via the franchise owners’ email, social media, websites and in-person events. The goal is to help build the franchisee’s email database as every unique email address entered for a chance to win also becomes an email subscriber.
The Magellan Awards honor outstanding design, marketing and services in a broad range of industry segments including Hospitality, Travel Destinations, Cruise Lines, Online Travel Services, Airlines and Airports, Travel Agents and Agencies, Tour Operators and Ground Transportation.
“Each year’s Magellan entries are an impressive display of innovation and creativity in the industry, and this year’s were particularly special. It’s a testament to the incredible work done over the last year, and a collective desire to not only meet today’s consumer expectations, but exceed them,” said Arnie Weissmann, editor in chief of Travel Weekly. “We salute all those who entered and all those who won.”
The Magellan Awards are judged and overseen by a one-of-a-kind panel of top travel professionals representing the best names and most accomplished leaders from the industry. In determining winners, entries do not compete with one another, instead they are judged against a standard of excellence based on the long experience of Travel Weekly. To uphold this high standard of excellence, a category may have multiple winners, or may have no winners at all.
For a complete list of silver and gold winners, please visit www.travelweeklyawards.com.
About Dream Vacations
Travel agents with the top-ranked home-based travel agency franchise Dream Vacations have the resources to plan and create seamless vacation experiences for their customers while offering the best value. A member of the International Franchise Association, Dream Vacations is part of World Travel Holdings and has received franchise partner of the year, a top-ranking status, by all the major cruise lines as well as national recognition for its support of military veterans. For more information about Dream Vacations, visit www.DreamVacationsFranchise.com. Like Dream Vacations on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DreamVacationsFranchise, follow on Twitter at @Dream_Franchise and watch its videos at http://www.youtube.com/DreamVacationsBusiness.
About Travel Weekly
Travel Weekly is the most influential provider of news, research, opinion, and analysis to the North American travel trade marketplace. It reaches a broad industry audience in print, online and with face-to-face events throughout the year. Travel Weekly is a division of Secaucus, New Jersey-based Northstar Travel Media, the largest travel business-to-business travel publisher in the world.
About Northstar Travel Group
Northstar Travel Group is the leading B-to-B information and marketing solutions company serving all segments of the travel industry including leisure/retail, corporate/business travel, corporate and sports meetings, incentives, hospitality, and travel technology. Northstar is the owner of leading brands serving these travel segments. The company produces more than 100 face-to-face events in 13 countries in retail travel, hospitality, corporate travel, travel technology, sports travel, and the meetings & incentive industry. In addition, Northstar owns Phocuswright, the leading research and event producer serving the travel technology industry. Northstar
Travel Group owns the BHN Group, the leading producer of hotel investment conferences.
Northstar is also the majority shareholder in Inntopia, the leading SaaS e-commerce software business serving the mountain destination, golf, activities, and hospitality markets. Based in Rutherford, NJ, the company has seven offices in the U.S., UK, and Singapore. Northstar Travel Group is owned by funds managed by EagleTree Capital.
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Media Contact:
Michael Cadigan, Public Relations Manager
Dream Vacations
954-958-3627
mcadigan@wth.com
