Alex Sharpe, president and CEO of Signature. Photo: Dori Saltzman
In 2023, the Signature Travel group will send more than 1.5 million people on vacation, making it one of the busiest years for the consortium.
“The future is bright,” said Alex Sharpe, president and CEO of Signature. “There is 36% more business on the books for next year than we had at this point last year. That’s a heck of a head start… More than 60% of our total 2023 business is already on the books for 2024.”
Speaking to a packed room of more than 2,600 travel advisors, travel supplier partners, and Signature employees – the largest conference in the consortium’s history – Sharpe celebrated this year’s successes.
Currently, Signature has 281 member agencies across 804 locations, comprising more than 15,000 travel advisors – more than 1,700 attended this year’s conference, including some 730 first-time attendees.
The average Signature agency does $12.8 million in sales, which Sharpe told supplier partners in a later session, is “the most sales per agency of any consortia in the world.”
Year-over-year, same-store sales continue to grow, he added – up 47% for cruise, up 40% for travel insurance, up 34% for preferred hotel (room nights), and up 12% for land.
In spite of the all the good news, Sharpe cautioned advisors against complacency.
“Frankly, we might need a little bit of it [head start],” he said, referring to upcoming challenges that will likely include the presidential election and global unrest.
“This industry is not easy. This is the most exposed industry in the world… We always have to be prepared. We always have to be thinking ahead.”
The good news, he added, is that all the future challenges he foresees are merely bumps in the road, and each travel challenge cements the value that advisors bring to the table.
“Every time this stuff happens, you become more important,” he said.
Future-proofing initiatives
To help advisors prepare for 2024 and beyond, Signature announced several technology and marketing improvements coming in the immediate to near future.
“We’ve invested more in technology during COVID more than at any other time,” Sharpe told advisors. “Now you have the tools to be far more efficient. Don’t be scared, dig in, use the technology.”
For those who use a lack of time as an excuse not to explore Signature’s new technology, Sharpe replied, “You don’t have the time not to learn it.”
Technology
“Infrastructure was our focus. We wanted to shore everything up, get really set for the future,” said Karen Yeates, executive vice president of information technologies at Signature.
Among some of the technological features that were completed over the past year were a preferred partners search for advisors, an updated cruise booking engine powered by Odysseus with more itinerary and ship information, and a consumer-facing cruise booking system that advisors can put on their own website.
In addition to the new cruise booking system, Signature is close to launching a new hotel booking engine, powered by NaviTrip. It will be fully integrated into SigNet so that members can continue to book hotels the way they always have, but it will have better search and filter capabilities. There will also be an optional consumer-facing hotel booking engine.
Ultimately, Yeates said, Signature’s goal is to integrate all the booking engines into one consolidated system. Currently, that system only has the cruise booking engine, but the organization hopes to add land, hotel, car, excursions, and insurance to create a one-stop shopping system for advisors.
Additionally, Signature built its own CRM database to house all CRM data from across its membership. This allows member agencies to choose whatever CRM system they want (previously Signature agencies were required to use ClientBase), so long as the data can be synched with Signature’s new system, Client Connection.
Marketing
Several marketing initiatives are under way at Signature, including creation of an all new marketing campaign system and a list management and reporting system, along with a SMS marketing system that advisors can use with clients who prefer to communicate by text.
The new marketing campaign system, which Yeates said is very close to the finishing line provides better automation and reporting, and faster campaigns.
“Where a previous campaign that had a million customers receiving it could take six hours to deliver, with Marketing Cloud, that same campaign will take seven minutes to go to clients.
Signature’s list management system, which has been under development since early 2023, will launch by the end of the year and provides visibility and reporting on agencies’ print, email, and digital marketing campaigns.
Launching in the first quarter of next year will be a Kipsu text partnership, so members don’t have to use their private cell phone numbers to have a conversation with clients. With Kipsu, members will also be able to collect secure payments, and all conversations will be synched back into their CRM. Signature’s long-term goal with Kipsu is to integrate it into Marketing Cloud so that advisors can send marketing campaigns via SMS.
Circles
In a vast world, advisors who specialize stand out, Sharpe said. To help specialists network with each other, Signature is introducing “Circles,” groups of experts in the same niche who can share best practices and network with niche-specific suppliers. Circles can also help advisors who want to become an expert in a specific area.
“Circles give us an opportunity to identify experts in these areas and identify people who want to be experts in these areas,” Sharpe said.
While Signature is launching with several circles, there are three the group is focusing on: Exploration/Adventure, Positive Impact, and LGBTQ.
Not quite farewell to Ignacio Maza
In September, long-time Signature executive Ignacio Maza announced he would be leaving the consortium at the end of this year. But it’s not quite a permanent good-bye.
While he is leaving his role as executive vice president, he will continue to serve as a senior advisor, speaker, and writer for the consortium. As a speaker, he’ll be at Signature’s June regional meeting in Chicago, the September owner’s meeting, and at next year’s annual conference.
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