Destination Weddings

I had an interesting conversation with a bride today. One of our agents had worked extensively to understand her desires for the site of her destination wedding and recommend appropriate destination and resorts. Additionally the agent had made international phone calls to secure the desired date at the resort (no small feat..make no mistake about it).

Finally, the agent received an email from the bride that they had decided to do the actual booking with a family friend who happened to be a travel agent.

WHOA! Are you kidding?

I've been trying to reach the bride for the week or so since this came up. Finally today I was able to begin an email interchange with her.

After determining that the agent hadn't done something to offend the bride and had done a fine job in working with her I replied thus:

The whole reason I'm being so diligent with this that, (and you probably already know this) unless we charge professional fees, we are only compensated when we actually sell a trip. The free services [the agent] provided to you (consulting, making international phone calls, using our contacts at the hotels to secure the wedding date, etc) at no cost are only compensated to her when you and your guests actually book their trips. The work done at no charge is with the understanding that the trip will ultimately be booked with the agent doing the work.

The prices for the trips are set by the wholesalers and not by the agency. Generally speaking when there appears to be a price difference of one agency over another there is a good reason for it. (One includes a different room type, a different air schedule or whatever).

So, my whole reason in following up on this is so that we put practices in place so that we do the very best job for our brides while at the same time paying the light bill."

The bride replied that it had never occurred to her to consider how [the agent] was compensated.

I guess we need to do a better job of educating people on the front end of the process.