Travel Counsellors has this week launched an innovative online campaign, hosted via Facebook and enabling people to share their travel ‘dreams’ with the chance to win €12,000 towards their ideal holiday.
The company, which has 44 agents running their own home-based businesses in Ireland and a further 1,100 across the globe, has developed a special Dream-maker App (http://apps.facebook.com/tcdreammaker), where users can browse the app and submit their own dream along with pictures, after which people can vote for the dreams – with the most popular submission winning the ultimate prize of having their perfect holiday put together by the company.
“We understand how important dreams are – we have built a business on making them come true,” said Managing Director Steve Byrne. “Within a consumer survey we conducted, 68% of respondents agreed with the statement that our dreams make us who we are. This is so powerful and we wanted a campaign to really capture and celebrate the ‘feel good factor’ of both making dreams come true for customers and realising our Travel Counsellors’ own dreams by empowering them to be in control of their own destinies.
“We are referring to our agents as ‘dream-makers’ as they are dedicated to taking care of their customers’ needs down to the last detail. So much so there is a section within the site that showcases how our Travel Counsellors have gone above and beyond for their customers, plus an area where people can find out more about how they can become a ‘dream-maker’ and join our award-winning team of agents.”
This innovative campaign follows research by the company that shows 70% of people are yet to travel to their ‘dream destination’. Popular reasons for this were being restricted by work commitments, financial constraints followed by family commitments and time restraints.
In the survey, completed by 1,818 respondents globally in July 2012, just 30% of the people claimed to have actually taken their ‘dream’ trip, with 71% of these saying it met all their expectations. When naming their ideal getaway, almost half of the responses were from those seeking a relaxing escape, highlighting the rise in stress many people are experiencing in the current climate and the longer hours many are working. This was followed by people who fancied a journey of exploration and discovery, with another travel favourite from participants being the idea of taking a luxury cruise holiday.
People using the app can also gain inspiration from a dedicated area within the site, which gives details on a range of products and destinations to get people’s imaginations flowing from desert adventures to exotic getaways.
Cathy Burke, General Manager Ireland, added: “This is a highly innovative campaign and completely different to anything we have ever done before. We feel it reflects our ethos of putting people at the heart of everything we do and providing a service that goes above and beyond.
“It also reflects our individual Travel Counsellors’ own personal dreams. Some people dream of running their own business, while others dream about being able to pick up their children from school. Most people dream of earning more – some dreams are smaller but just as important, such as simply being listened to and not having to sell what they are told to sell.
“We hope this campaign will enable people to focus on what really matters to them, and what their dreams are for the future. We encourage people to get involved, engage with others and be in with a chance of making their dream trip a reality.”
Travel Counsellors envisages that the campaign will spread virally as people share and vote for each other’s ‘dreams’ via the Facebook app, and will be announcing the winning entry in September this year.
