Building business releationships

[DarrenC]

An idea.

I'm looking for holiday car hire, travel insurance and flight booking companies to advertise on my primary business Worldwide Holiday Homes. I'm not interested in affiliate links - I enjoy communicating with other travel companies, so I'd prefer to build a working relationship.

Holidaymakers are looking for accommodation - along with travel insurance, flights and car hire, so rather than visiting several websites, I want to give holidaymakers the opportunity of booking all services on Worldwide Holiday Homes.

I have no knowledge or experience in communicating with potential travel company advertisers, and wondered if someone was willing to do this for me in return for a percentage of the income raised from advertising.

OR is this a bad idea?

Darren

[WakingDragon]

That's a tough one. Not clear on whether you are planning to sell the products as a distributor or simply provide the opportunity for e.g. Columbus Direct Insurance to sell through your site.

If it is the latter then my first recommendation is to come up with a decent proposal. Call round to see which companies, if any, work in the way you want to. If any do, see what terms they like to work with and build your proposal around that.

You will need to demonstrate decent sales and revenue potential to make it worth the effort involved for your potential partners. But then again they may have the facilities already there to offer this service through third parties.

You need to also look at whether the potential partners will add any value to your customers. I would have thought (but don't know!) that people booking separate holiday homes would be capable of looking around for good deals on flights and insurance, so offering a limited range might have a negative impact on the perceived "value proposition" from your site. You might need to research this with your customers first.

Customer research combined with good sales stats could make a powerful proposal.

As you probably know, reselling is unlikely to be practical with all the regulatory controls on flights and insurance.

[DarrenC]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply! :) I wouldn't be selling travel insurance or flights through my business, and I am quite aware of the implications of that.

I am just looking for travel companies to advertise on the site, because my clientbase is looking for this type of service or product - Im trying to keep them on the site so that they can book everything in one place.



Darren

[Ian J]

I would have thought (but don't know!) that people booking separate holiday homes would be capable of looking around for good deals on flights and insurance.

That's not necessarily true as many of us don't want the hassle of having to make separate arrangements for everything. I used one company specifically because I could book the villa, flights, car hire and insurance all in one fell swoop.