Discover Dominica Authority (DDA), through its partnership with travel agent groups Questex and Passport, recently hosted a series of travel webinars targeting the United States and United Kingdom markets. Two of the webinars were facilitated by the DDA’s North American representation agency, Zapwater Communications, targeting travel agents interested in learning more about Dominica.
The Questex Webinar was held on June 21, with 730 travel advisors registered, which is 20% more attendees than other webinars held by the organization. A campaign with Questex was conducted over the last few months which included the following activity: • Email newsletters selling the ‘Why Dominica’ sent to 70,000 travel advisors that achieved a 28% open rate • Targeted emails sent to 20,000 travel advisors that 21% of the audience opened, which is considered an above average open rate • Advertising of webinar in Travel Agent Central and Dossier Luxury News. • Webinar held 21st June 2023 where 730 travel advisors registered • Attendance at the Luxury Travel Advisors Ultra Luxury Summit in Scottsdale whereby one on one meetings were conducted with pre-qualified travel advisors. A total of 70 travel advisors were in attendance.
The Passport Webinar was held on July 13, with 142 travel advisors registered and 514 click throughs to the webinar’s webpage. The agency assisted the DDA team by providing key messaging, creating the presentation, support leading up to the webinar and attending the session. Passport Online is the leisure travel industry leader in website, web content, email marketing, and social media solutions technology for the travel agency community. Our marketing campaign with Passport included the following activity:
Direct to Consumer Email (Ongoing)
- Targeted email sent to approximately 50,000 consumers
- Multi-Supplier Email: Broadcast e-mail sent to over 550,000 consumers, that contained
promotions from individual suppliers on different, non-competing products - Multi-Supplier Electronic Travel Magazine: A detailed promotional piece, focusing on Dominica
featuring itineraries E-zines is being re distributed to over 530,000 consumers.
Direct to Advisor Emails
• Promotion sent to 75,000 Travel Advisors Direct to Advisor Webinar.
Direct to Advisor Webinar
• A 60-minute webinar was hosted on July 13 with 142 registrants.
The Tropic Breeze Webinar was held on July 20, following a great discussion on Dominica products at the 2023, CHTA Marketplace in May. Tropic Breeze’s Destination Manager, Katie Hill, reached out to the Discover Dominica Authority for more information on Dominica products. They are already selling properties like Jungle Bay, Fort Young and Secret Bay, however, would like to include more properties like Rosalie Bay and Coulibri Ridge in their portfolio. Both parties felt the best way to increase business for Dominica would be to improve sales agents’ destination knowledge through a webinar training session to effect increased sales and marketing of the destination, rather than just the individual hotels. The presentation featured key messaging and selling points to better equip the agents to sell or recommend Dominica to their clients.
