In the six years Thea Gillingham has been a Travel Counsellor, she has steadily built her business, with the last year being her best ever when she brought in just under a million pounds. Her bookings are 100% leisure-based, and she works mostly with two main client types: millennials and young families.

“I always try to focus on high-end experiences but also on value for money,” she says. “Premium leisure is definitely the direction things are going for me, with Asia and South Africa being two of my biggest long-haul destinations, and then Greece is probably my number one spot in Europe. It is a real mix though, I do book all sorts.”

About 45% of Thea’s enquiries come from social media, and a high proportion of the rest from referrals; she also has a 75% rebook rate. She uses Facebook and Instagram but doesn’t pay to play, preferring instead to share her own travel experiences, and posts too on the local community pages for the town of Keynsham in Somerset where she lives.

“People often recognise me just from being out and about, which helps as my town is quite small. I think showing my face, sharing my own travel pics and generally being a real person on social media makes a difference – people know I’m not just a faceless travel company and feel okay getting in touch. This helps me build a lot of trust, especially when I use my active travel knowledge as a selling point.”

Handwritten cards

Thea sends every client a thank you card when they make a booking. She personalises this pre-printed card, and uses it as a touchpoint to remind them that she is “real” as they may only have met her through social media.

While she has cut back a lot on print in general, and has considered sending the cards digitally, she’s a big believer in print being more meaningful in this particular instance.
 
She explains: “If a client has spent £20,000, it’s nice for them to have something in their hand to know ’m real after they’ve trusted me with their money. There’s the joy to opening a handwritten card that people really appreciate.” 

© Thea Gillingham

This card includes the details of her referral scheme, which runs from January to December and offers the person who refers the most business to her a £250 credit towards their next booking. As well as posting about it on social media, details of the referral scheme are printed on a simple leaflet tucked inside the card. “It’s nothing fancy," she stresses.
 
“It says, ‘Don’t keep me a secret!’, and explains they could win a £250 holiday voucher if they refer me to their friends or family and those people go on and book. It’s really quite straightforward but it does give clients a reason – and a little nudge – to send people my way.

“I’m not great at the hard sell,” she adds. “So I found the leaflets a nice soft approach for me to promote referrals.”

Thea tried set prizes – like a hotel stay – in the past, but found credit was a better option, which comes out of her commission.

The idea came to Thea after seeing other Travel Counsellors try similar things with mixed success. “The reason I started was because a few of my higher-end clients kept making little comments about there being anything in it for them if they refer someone. It wasn’t pushy, it was just a running joke, but it made me think maybe I should offer something – even just a small token.”

Incentivising clients

Thea continues: “The couple who always made those comments were the first to refer their son and daughter-in-law after I launched it – and they ended up booking a £25,000 Caribbean trip! Since then, they've referred more. Also, my top booker, who rarely referred before, now does so quite consistently since the referral thing came in, which is a nice win.”

When Thea gets an enquiry, she makes a note of who referred them when she creates the new profile, and when it becomes a booking it’s all linked in the system. “It’s pretty easy,” she explains. “I don’t bother with referral codes; clients will usually just tell me, and I include a question on my enquiry form about how people found me. Since pretty much all my business is word of mouth or from social media, that works fine as a nudge to getting people to tell me they were referred.”

Last year’s winning client was a repeat client of Thea’s who has booked with her for many years – and the £250 helped secure another booking for the family.

“I was really pleased she was the one to win,” says Thea. “She’d booked a family trip to Thailand and put the deposit down ages in advance, but I didn’t realise until after telling her she’d won that their balance was due soon. Because her husband was changing jobs, they honestly didn’t know if they’d be able to swing it. She was so grateful because the prize meant they could still go.

“Interestingly, this year’s top two on the referral leaderboard have never previously sent so many people my way, so I must be doing something right – they’re all really high-value, premium leisure clients too,” she adds.

Last year’s referral league brought in 75 bookings, with at least one client responsible for referring another £100,000 of business. “It’s hard to say exactly how much of my business is influenced by the incentive, but around half my bookings are tracked as a referral source – so it’s fair to say this simple scheme is an easy way to supercharge my business,” she says.