Thank you for those of you that attended our January 16th Coffee Break featuring Barry Karp and Susannah Lago from ShoreTrips. Barry and Susannah gave a great presentation! We received many great questions and have provided the answers for you below. If you have any additional questions or comments please leave a comment below, or contact ShoreTrips at 888-355-0220 or by visiting their website www.ShoreTrips.com.
Q. Does ShoreTrips guarantee that passengers will return to their ship in time for sailing?
A. Last year we moved 150,000 people and not one of them was returned to the ship late. We use operators who use radio control and know how important it is to get the people back to the ship in time. We also time our trips. If we say it starts at 11am and it is 2 hours, you will know your client will be back 1 or 2 hours before the ship departs.
Only once, 2 years ago, did we ever have someone miss a cruise. We had a family of 4 who hopped on a 3:30 / 4:00 helicopter/dog sled tour in Juno, Alaska. They got to the dog sled camp and were enjoying the excursion. The weather set in and the helicopter could not land. So the family stayed at the Glacier dog sled camp with the other people and the dogs. J The next day the helicopter came in and picked them up and flew them to Skagway. Now we were VERY lucky. The family said when they got to Skagway they called their travel agent and said that was the best experience they have ever had on their vacations.
Now if they were like some other people they would come back and say they want their money back or a free cruise. ShoreTrips has insurance. So do not worry, we will take care of your clients- even if we have to move them from one port to another we will move them. We have a great deal of experience so we will get your clients from one place to another. We will even include you in the planning procedure. We will do whatever we have to do to make sure everybody is happy.
Q. Can the client call ShoreTrips if there is a problem?
A. Of course we will take calls anytime. On our vouchers we provide the vendors telephone number as well as our telephone number.
Q. I have presented these to quite a few clients. The biggest barrier has been that a lot of tours don’t pick the clients up at the pier. Could you add transfers if the tour operator does not?
A. On our trip’s descriptions we let you know whether or not there are transfers included- do we pick them up at the pier or do they have to get a taxi to get there. There are operators/activity providers we use that are magnificent- for example sometimes scuba shops will pick up people at the pier. Most of the ports we can arrange transportation but some ports we do not because it is just too expensive to do a prepaid private car when taxis are available right there at the pier. You will find most of our dive trips (although St Thomas the transportation is provided) the transportation from the pier is not included. We do provide you right in the excursion how much we estimate that taxi trip to cost. Our sightseeing tours are another thing. Most of the time- 99% of the time- the sightseeing tours pick the clients right up at the pier. So whenever it is possible we will provide the transportation.
Q. Can we put a link in our webpage to your sight?
A. Yes! We have what is called a smart hyperlink system. We will provide you a special code to put underneath your hot button to move your clients over to us. That special code identifies the customer as your customer. So if your client comes to us through your site to look us over and 3 days later comes directly to us without going to your site we will know he/she is your client. Now what if the system fails? For example, your client goes to your site and comes to our site while he is at his home computer. However, the next day he comes directly to our site from his office computer and we are unable to know who he is because we identify the computer. But if you hear your client booked with us all you have to do is call us and say my client booked with you and we will check into that system. We would then go into his booking and add your agency to it. If you want that hyperlink just give us a call requesting it and we will send it to you along with some hot buttons. You can call anyone in our office for that.
Q. Do you book exclusively through travel agents?
A. 73% of all of our bookings come from travel agents. Other people are able to find us and come to us. This is why we recommend agencies as soon as you talk to someone about going on anything where they may use our services please go to our referral list and get those people under your agency. We would rather have travelers come to us through a travel agent because we want you to be able to look at their vouchers and explain to them what is going on. Plus we want you to be the person that recommends ShoreTrips to your clients.
Q. What are your hours of availability?
A. Our hours of availability are: Mon-Thurs 8-8 (central time) Friday 8-6 (central time) Saturday 9-3 (central time) Sunday 11-5 (central time)
Please note that we do have limited staff on the weekends but want to make the phones available as a courtesy to our clients. So if you could leave your questions for Monday-Friday that would be great. We also have a 24 hour answering service that will and do call us up in the middle of the night- especially if someone forgets their voucher where it may be 5pm there but 2am here J
To view the complete webinar please click here.