Independent travel agent Travel Counsellors is offering a £10,000 prize for a customer to spend on their dream holiday in its first campaign based purely on social media.
Travel Counsellors launches first social media campaign
Independent travel agent Travel Counsellors is offering a £10,000 prize for a customer to spend on their dream holiday in its first campaign based purely on social media.
The firm, which employs around 800 home-based agents in the UK and over 1,000 worldwide, is urging customers to post details of their dream holiday online via Facebook.
The Dream Maker campaign encourages people to share their dreams and these are voted on with the ultimate winner receiving the cash prize to pay for or put towards their trip.
The campaign will run throughout the summer until September 30 after which a winner will be announced.
Steve Byrne, Travel Counsellors managing director, said Facebook was chosen as the social network for the campaign because it was the one its agents have most presence on.
And he said he also hoped the campaign will raise awareness of the firm among potential recruits who may see working from home as a travel agent as way of fulfilling their dreams.
A promotional video for the Dream Maker campaign on Youtube starts off with an endorsement from a Travel Counsellor.
“People like to dream about what they would like to do and what would be their ideal trip and hopefully we can help some people realise those dreams.
“For our travel counsellors it’s a chance for them to articulate what they get from their lives as travel counsellors.”
Byrne said he hoped the campaign would help to raise the awareness of Travel Counsellors and its engagement with existing and new customers.
“We want to be relevant to people. What we want to do is remind people what a holiday can provide them, about what’s important. It’s what all great brands are about.
“Even those companies that grew quickly focusing in volume and transaction and price are realising it’s ultimately about dreams.
“This is not about generating an immediate commercial response, it’s about engaging with people emotionally.
“It’s about building relationships with people over a period of time so we become their first port of call.”
Travel Counsellors will assess the success of this first social media campaign before looking at future initiatives to exploit the power of social networks.
Byrne said most of Travel Counsellors’ recruitment comes via word of mouth and that he hoped this campaign would also help it raise its profile among potential new agents.
He said the firm has also recruited more people in 2012 than throughout the whole of 2011.
