FORT LAUDERDALE -- Ask four travel executives what the hot
destination is for 2017 and it's likely you'll get four different
answers.
On "Selling the World -- An Exploration of Destination
Travel" at the 2016 CruiseWorld conference, Egypt was on the radar of
Ellen Bettridge, president and CEO of the Uniworld Boutique River Cruise
Collection.
While interest in Egypt is starting to return, "It will
be 2018 or '19 before we really start to see it come back," she said.
For Steve Lima, U.S. marketing manager for G Adventures,
Peru is the top destination. But Bhutan and Greenland are also hot for 2017.
Lima said younger millennial travelers have more money than
you might expect for travel because of new services such as Uber and Spotify. "I
don't need to buy tons of records and go to concerts or buy a car," he
said.
Mike Going, president of Funjet Vacations, said consumers
will make a big deal of price, but what they really want is a memorable
experience, and the travel agent has to make that the focus.
"If you go into someone's home or office, the picture
on the desk or mantle, it's of an experience, generally a favorite moment,
doing something they weren't normally doing. Has anyone ever seen someone take
the time to mount the Visa receipt from that vacation?" Going asked.
When the panel was asked about what "super smart"
agents do, Joe Jiffo, vice president of sales at Exclusive Group Travel, said
that one thing good travel agents do to boost their business is hire someone
who has a specialty different from anything the agency sells now. He cited an
agent whose niche is Indian destination weddings.
"That business is just booming," Jiffo said. "That's
all this guy does, focus on Indian weddings."