Business in Paradise - November 2003

by Lee Kraft

When it comes to dedicating efforts towards the goal of preparing travel agents...
Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo has the leverage on most other Mexican resorts.

Considering, that it is just about impossible to make money for travel agents when it comes to selling air fares, I wonder how people book their flights to places like Zihua, where there are not all that many convenient connections and probably less attractive rates than to mass market destinations like Cancun and Vallarta. If for the travel agents the business of “getting there” is not lucrative anymore, are they concentrating on the business of “being there”?

Of course, in order to be a good and efficient consultant for vacation destinations, the travel agent must have thorough knowledge and preferably first hand experience of the “product”. That way, he can spend far less time pondering over fares and far more time helping clients maximizing their experiences once they get wherever they are going.

When it comes to dedicating efforts towards the goal of preparing travel agents in regard to “being there”, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo has the leverage on most other Mexican resorts. For the last three years, the towns CVB has been holding regular events all over the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico, inviting interested travel agents to be part of the specialized group of professionals that not only have a greater knowledge of the resort, but also have direct contacts to service providers here. The purpose of these Educational Workshops is to improve travel agency profitability through destination knowledge. This concept allows travel agencies to engage in partnership with vendors in their city (whole sellers, charter operators, airlines), but also with hotels and destination management companies directly from Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo. By attending one of the workshops, travel agents learn to improve profitability through a partnership with the destination and get the opportunity to partner with major destination hoteliers and service providers. The tools prepared for the travel trade include a comprehensive reference manual with an incredible amount of useful and detailed information and continued updates for the manual. With all this, the traveler (the client) should get the benefit of an efficient consultancy and, at the same time, access to better rates for hotels and other services.

Besides the charter business, which is the “daily bread” and the financial back bone of the bigger hotels in Ixtapa, romance (honeymooners, etc.), family (mainly during the summer and origination from different Mexican cities), deep sea fishing, golf and other sporting activities are the main market segments the destination is catering to. An interesting niche that has not yet been explored sufficiently, but has great potentials for our town, is with the kind of visitors appreciative not only of the natural beauty of the resort and the surrounding area, but in a resort that develops programs and invests money into the conservation of the ecological balance. There is still a lot do in order to reach the goal of being that kind of destination, but the awareness is growing thanks to organizations such as Eco Ixtapa and Viva Bahía. The sister city program with Palm Desert in California will surely contribute to this end and hopefully, sometime in the near future, we can boast of being an ecologically conscious resort.