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[Music] kia ora and welcome to the itinerary we all know that a salesperson is someone who sells products goods and services to customers but did you know that this role is particularly critical for the tourism and hospitality industry these talented folk work their magic to ensure cell both globally and domestically work closely with marketing teams and uniquely for the tourism industry they work very hard to attract the mice market which stands for meetings incentives conventions and exhibitions and is a niche but incredibly profitable part of the tourism industry to help me discuss this topic today salmon cannon swing and fox sales manager fiona national sales manager of real nz and colette sales manager at skylines so team let's pretend we're not in covert times right now god we all wish that was the case what does a day in your shoes or your lives look like as sales people for the tourism industry let's go to you first first thing i'd say is that working in a sales role it's definitely not your classic nine to five gig that's not unique to tourism um but what is unique to tourism is if you are working weekends and evenings you're most likely doing something pretty cool so by that you're hosting the mills or you're attending networking drinks so my day pre-covered i would say that it typically depends on the time of year if i'm honest so right now we're here in mid to late october so if we think back to 2019 i was on a sales mission in north america um i was just back from sales mission in southeast asia and i was returning back to new zealand to get my teeth into some pretty hectic business planning to have that completed before christmas so um yeah depending on the time of year that like no day was the same um but it was always a lot of fun oh my gosh fiona what about you you obviously your company has so many things that it does what does a day in your life look like colette absolutely nailed it there's no two days that are the same um my goal was to always inform and engage and excite whoever you were talking to and your audience was always really diverse so anyone from a small to large wholesaler retailer online travel agent inbounders and their options were limitless as well they had the entire world to sell to and although the bookings would ebb and flow with the seasons your year actually became quite structured you knew the best times to do team product trainings you know the brochure renewal contract times you had agent for mills scattered throughout and you knew when to set up incentives and then of course when you could celebrate and reward those incentives as well no well salmon i'm interested one how did you get the name uh and two what does a day look like in your life because obviously with a name like that it's gotta be a little bit interesting well the the name's quite basic other than being an exceptional swimmer it's actually from my parents so uh yeah that just stemmed on and now everyone calls me salmon as if i'm just like madonna or something but um yeah my my kind of day today similar to the girls they're from much bigger companies we're very small and unique in what we do but still the same things happen we're still dealing with wholesalers inbounders and all the agents that are locally around town you're on the phone a lot you're a lot of communication and getting to see the people and thanking the people that do get to book you and training the people that are yet to know who you are so it's a lot of talking a lot of waffling a lot of meeting good people and that was yeah that's kind of the day-to-day pre-code do you know what i think what i'm picking up here there is a lot of travel involved pre-covered obviously and obviously as we get out to mystic traveling back up and running this that who starting with you sam who are the people you would typically interact with because obviously i think people think sales is just people calling you but obviously you've got to hustle a little bit so who do you deal with yeah it depends who comes to you first some things you just pull out of the top of your head you're like this person i've seen i'm gonna go talk to them and find out what they do and if we can connect to work together sometimes we'll be working with your rto and they're like we've got a sales mission planned who's it and everyone's like yes let's get involved but yeah there's there's elements of people approaching you and there's elements of you going out there hustling and finding people just opening the conversation because in the tourism industry everyone's open to have that chat and if the fit's right then it's game on yeah yeah yeah claire and um fiona obviously you're talking um when you were saying what a day looks like international market and obviously while we're in covet it's important for us to keep in touch with those people because we still want them to come here i'll go to you first fiona you know who are you typically interacting with in the international market as well because that's probably really important you know for your company to make sure that we're still connected with them yeah definitely um and we are still it's actually quite funny because in one conversation you're trying to fill up a boat for tomorrow so you're talking to really local agents who sell on your behalf and then in the next conversation you're talking to an agent who was an outbounder who would sell international travel and they've had to turn inbound and you're talking about an experience in like three summers time so um a lot of chats externally but we definitely try not to leave any stone unturned at the moment we are going full country top to bottom and then back up again and with such a large portfolio we're pretty lucky that they we do have something to offer for everyone nice and clear obviously you're nationwide as well um are you are you seeing similar things your interactions are not only nationwide to try and get out there to get domestic people obviously coming and experiencing your amazing offerings but how are you also staying in touch with those internationally i guess we lean into our inbound tour operator network so pre-covered those guys brought in 55 of international rivals into the country so they're everyone's best mates um there's 60 inventor operators currently registered with the tourism export council and so we stay in touch with those guys so we generally use them as a conduit to get in touch and interact with our international buyers and just most recently tia have introduced trends connect which is digital platform that allows us to access directly into our international buyers and and just stay in touch and stay in contact because our job is to keep new zealand in in mind you know we got it we got to keep it alive keep the dream going yeah because we still want those international people here we still want them here we've got to get in at the right time you know i just read a report last week obviously from tech um saying if we do not put some lines in the sands we will miss next year's opportunities for people to come here so i think that's one of the big things that we've got at the moment trying to make sure that we still get internationals here in the next 2022 and 2023 um for those bookings and get some of those sales for you um seven how does a sales role in tourism differ from a sales role in other industries is it more fun pretty obvious that i think it is i mean it depends what you're selling um but you know if you're out in the trades you might be you could be selling anything from i don't know toilet roll holders to scaffolding or something which you might love and that's nothing wrong with that but generally in the tourism industry you're selling holidays you're selling fun you're sending experiences and it's just so easy to talk about non-stop constantly for everything you have with the guys that have more products than just a couple with us i could i've been doing it for six years and i could talk about swinging in the fox every single day no problem so yeah it's great fun i'll just tell you a little bit about my own personal experience so before i left ireland i was a qualified financial advisor so in essence that was a sales rule right so you're you're selling products financial products to customers um as you can imagine selling pensions and investments and protection policies is an absolute hoot um compared to tourism said yes 100 so it's way more fun we're actually selling we're selling experiences we're selling lifetime memories so we have customers that are coming to visit in skyline and we're saying yes you need to upgrade and do the premium dining experience because you need that cocktail you deserve it come on to queenstown come into new zealand and have an awesome time that's the role you know we're the essence of fun it is fun and i've had a few sales roles in varying industries and tourism by far are the most passionate people um i used to believe i was passionate about the sales process because it was all about relationships and it wasn't until i got in the tourism industry and i got to sell a dream or i got to sell a once in a lifetime experience like salmon and i got to sell a memory like colette that i understood it was a people industry and providing people with memorable experiences is a pretty special thing yeah i agree with you you know what can you tell me fiona about your role in big industry events such as trends obviously we've talked about trends going online uh meetings bei all the different events why are they important and what role do they play we love these really big events because it's a um platform we take so we can take the whole brand to the entire world but we also get to meet our wholesale and trade partners so we can maintain and grow those relationships especially those we don't frequently get to visit and with these type of agents they'll book with a really long lead in time so well before the visitor even starts to pack their luggage to come over so we really want to be promoting iconic experiences for that region and activities they know they want to do and that 99 of the time will appear on their itinerary before departure like a cruise in milford sound or a jet boat in the south island nice salmon what about yourself trends meetings what does it mean for you other than obviously a nice good networking gathering and maybe a couple of drinks with the team being a salmon we're actually like we're the small fish in a very big pond and uh that's why i've swum in there to get amongst it the networking events are hands down some of the best events you get to go to um i get involved in a lot of organizing the meetings taking the meeting sometimes we'll be there with you know uh someone helping you out or the boss man and you just you're just talking non-stop talking hydration is key uh a good meal and you know having your a game and just just making the connections and like you know a lot of work gets done there but it's all the work afterwards that goes on there's a lot of follow-up and you know once you've cleared your hazy head from the awesome closing parties then you can you know get down to business it's they're awesome events they are pretty awesome and someone who was pretty new into that that's actually i think one of the first places i met eucalypt um one of these one of these events what do you take away from these uh you know meetings and trends and so for me i think trends is sort of broken down into three parts so the first piece is the effort that you put in beforehand so there's somewhere in the region of 300 international buyers coming into new zealand and this is the pinnacle event for trade right um so you've got to figure out who it is that you want to meet with get your appointments all all sorted out and follow your strategy right so if you've got some gaps throughout the year where potentially you're trying to grow your shoulder season then you might think that you're looking for potentially new buyers out of india that would be bringing customers through in june may and june so appointments right there's 18 appointments a day i think they're eight minutes each and it's all go there's no time for dropping the ball it is all systems go and it's great it's lots of fun everybody is really keen to be there we're really keen to reconnect with everyone um so that's that's the second part which is the during the event piece which is also coupled with lots of lots of fun networking events and then the third piece is the follow-up which is completely vital so if you think that there's 300 buyers and they're having somewhere in the region of 150 appointments um if you expect them to be able to remember the finite information that you've given them in your eight minutes and then you don't know if you fancy your chances so therefore you when you get back to the office you're following up and saying hey bob remember what we spoke about um and and just making sure that the information is is followed through and then there's also the the familial side of things so because we have all of these international buyers in the country we invite them to come and experience our product because there's no better way to instill that enthusiasm than if somebody comes and experiences it and then they go home and they're even better advocates for the destination and hopefully your product it sounds better than speed dating i don't know why i haven't done it sooner um look we all know that obviously covert has had an impact but what i would like to ask you as a group is what impact has covered specifically had on tourism sales salmon i'll come to you first uh well you know it's obviously sucked for many for the people that lost their jobs and maybe moved on hopefully stayed in tourism but may have had to change that was obviously awful um but the good things that have come out of it for us are we've had time to be with the team figure out what was going on and kind of do the projects we've never had time to do because i mean luckily we were too busy to do it which was super cool we'd can't wait for that to happen again but we've had the opportunity ourselves to upgrade things uh look at everything that we do and uh just fine tune fine tweak everything so that when the experience is returned we can present that to the world as they come back and it's also been quite cool for me because i've gone from my sales role which i love to now across the company doing hosting driving for mills they're actually chucking people off our cliffs which is what we do so going learning more about the company and exactly what we do is awesome fun and it changes up the day even more than it already uh was before so yeah it's been that's a good look on what has happened for me anyway no i think it's really important as an industry we do stay positive because there's a lot of negatives out there and i think the more that we get into the negatives the more we buy into it we do understand that there's a lot of people hurting but i think i take away from you is the transferable skills and the way that you've just jumped in and you've been there to assist um you know claire i know that skyline is still investing and you know building some new things down in queenstown and other areas you know what has the impact on covert been for you know your organization so i've heard pre-covered being called the seven years of plenty um which i think kind of resonates with me um and when colbert struck i think we all got a real crash course in resilience um we'd gone from um problems like oh you know we're picking up calls you know i'm really sorry that we can't we don't have availability for your groups or your customers to really having to consider are we going to open for seven days next week um is it viable to to open on tuesday and wednesday for example so just a real different and different sort of outlook um our mindset had to change so we'd gone from being really proactive we had a really clear idea of which customers were coming at what volume we had a full pipeline um all of that was no more quite suddenly um and we had to be quite innovative and just come up with new products as an example we came up with a product which is gondola and unlimited luge which is something that we would have never considered pre-covered because we just simply didn't have the capacity for it so we just had to think differently and sort of um make sure that we were delivering products that were where that kiwis were we're interested in i think that's been the awesome thing it's been seeing what has come out of it um fiona obviously real new name new ceo a lot of offerings a lot of things getting paused a lot of things getting brought back your world looks like it's been a little bit of a real win uh give us an update from your side it has been a whirlwind but a very excited one and we're now sort of all in the same boat in the right direction because initially clover did have a really devastating impact on sales and borders are closed so we needed a team of five million to sell to and it just meant that we had to learn about a new market and then adapt all of our experiences and pricing to suit them um and i say new not because we haven't had domestic visitors before but because we know kiwis who are holidaying now are very different to those who used to visit us but the opportunity that came out of this was that we've got to re-gather re-look at our mission and say hey actually we're going to be a conservation business enabled by tourism i like that enabled by tourism look we all know tourism in new zealand will bounce back from these covert times and we are domestically we are doing that so what advice would you have as three individuals for youngsters who may be looking at exploring a sales role in tourism uh salmon let's go to you what advice would you have for a young person get amongst it that's like the most basic thing you could do like whether you start from uh frontline and selling to the people and meeting the people and understanding what they do or you start a middle management level whatever like starting anywhere is awesome because you can always climb to the top tourism has a if you really are committed to it and you really want to get involved you can climb quite quickly and people encourage that as well and if you have these people kicking around that have that experience and have that passion and you know if you want to be the boss you probably could be in a few years if you know someone shifts over so just get amongst it get networking meeting the people and just sharing what you love doing really yeah i agree in the front line uh i did do back in the day i was in well hospitality i had a very good time uh i was in accommodation as well for backpackers um absolute backpackers in queenstown shout out and then moved into the sales manager role i was lucky enough that they chose me to get and i've been loving it ever since fiona it's really interesting you asked that question because i always say when i'm doing presentations and stuff that we all started somewhere and you know mine was woolworths and then it was mcdonald's and it was a cafe and all that stuff and a lot of young individuals they always see where someone ends up but they don't actually see the progression they've done from where they started and so sometimes they may have been disillusioned that they can get there without doing the other stuff so um why don't i ask you where did you start before i ask what your advice is for a young person yeah so i've been in lots of different sales i was very very varied including like dating agency and raffle tickets on the street commission so i always knew sales was where i wanted to be but when we moved to queenstown um yeah i was in hospital enjoying the queenstown life and then decided i'll join the front line so join frontline and go orange and sold rafting and answered phones and a room out the back and then when the opportunity came up or sort of made the opportunity i moved up to the office and joined the rest of the sales team crazy and look at that see that's why you like meetings because of the speed dating thing and from your experience of being in a dating agency i say what's your what's what's your advice to your young person looking at entering in tourism and hospitality obviously perceptions are really really interesting at the moment a lot of people think that tourism hospitality is not the place to be what would you say to them um like i would say that the desire for travel is not going anywhere and if you are someone who absolutely loves ateroa who wants to showcase everything that new zealand has to offer to the world someone who loves the environment loves your community then tourism role is for you you're selling experiences you're selling memories so yeah if you're thinking about getting into tourism i'd also add that the time is really good because as our international border starts reopen our businesses will start to grow again and there will be new pathways opening at a great rate and in the coming sort of six to 12 months so i would say it's an awesome time to get into tourism well look right now is the best time because we've got the worst workforce shortage we've ever seen so if you want to start somewhere and progress as quickly as you can this is the time to go fiona let's come to you last what is your advice to a young individual looking at entering into the tourism hospitality industry go for it and we will bounce back there will be opportunities and in the meantime just put yourself out there get your foot in the door get networking and and create as many opportunities as you can i think that's the most amazing advice look simon fiona thank you so much for your time today i think if any young individual is watching this in particular get involved start contact hustle and you will end up in amazing positions like these three individuals thank you