Thinking about a career in travel? Or perhaps you're already a travel professional, but would like to polish your sales and service skills. Maybe you're a student in a travel training program who wants a preview of how to do your job right. No matter your goals, Connecting with Customers: How to Sell, Service, and Market the Travel Product will help you get there. Connecting with Customers features several unique elements:· It compares sales and service excellence practices in the travel and hospitality industry with more familiar examples from other fields.· Because it was written as a textbook-workbook, it features all sorts of thought-provoking application activities, diagnostic self-assessments and other dozens of other elements that turn it an interactive experience.· It's written in a style that's casual, accessible and a pleasure to read.Through interactive exercises, vivid examples and engaging prose, author Marc Mancini provides you with practical and powerful strategies to satisfy the travel needs of today's consumers. You'll learn how to:· Adapt the six fundamental steps of sales to the travel environment· Reveal the seven secrets of great customer counseling· Implement 15 best practices used by the world's most acclaimed service providers and that can be applied to the travel and hospitality industry· Apply the six major phases of the marketing cycle· Create a results-driven marketing plan· Decide which types and aspects of e-commerce will help you sell better· Serve the needs of niche markets, corporate travels, group departures and moreConnecting with Customers will help you achieve a deeper understanding of not only what sales, service and marketing practices the travel and hospitality business shares with other industries, but also how it differs from them in fundamental ways.