A week ago, USA Today ran a story with an alarming headline, “ Jamaica resorts facing a “historic” sexual assault problem.” Wow! That is not the type of headline one wants to see in a local paper, much less a national one with 726,908 daily printed papers and a total daily audience of more than 3 million. That is a story that will have legs and be something that we, as travel professionals, will need to address with our clients who are looking to travel to one of out top (for most) destinations. So, how do you keep your clients safe?

The simple answer is you can’t.

In the end, clients are responsible for their own safety and you probably should have some wording to that…

Clients want certainty. When consumers look at your marketing, they want to see a consistent brand message in every brochure, in every advertisement. Your brand is an assurance of quality, that your performance will be consistent with your promises.

The trick is you must be consistently different.

What sets you apart? What is the unique quality of your travel practice that makes you different from all others, that makes clients want to do business with you? After all, your clients have many options. They can book online at hundreds of sites, they can book direct with a supplier or they can book with another agency. Do you have a unique characteristic that makes you stand out from the crowd?…

Combining a little “personal” to your “professionalism” can boost performance and increase quality of care. Yet, in the name of professionalism, we often neglect the human element and adopt a stance that’s abstract and distant.

I am reminded of the many so-called “business professionals” who adopt the phrase, “Don’t take it personally, it’s just business.”

This positioning statement might have been true 20 years ago, but today it borders on lunacy. (Correct that. It was lunacy back then as well.) Business will always be personal, since today’s successful business is built on relationships. And, by its very definition, relationships are…