A discussion with Corporate Sailing – Tour Operator – Milan, Italy
Welcome to the first installment of our new blog series, Industry Insider. The series aims to highlight the fact that there are a lot of common challenges across the tourism industry. From sales to reservations to accounting to operations, we’re all battling to operate efficiently and profitably. TourConnect is passionate about helping the industry work together to overcome these challenges, and we hope that these blogs help shed light on how we can all make a difference together.
Today, we are excited to take a closer look at Corporate Sailing. Corporate Sailing is a tour operator, based in Italy, that focuses on providing life-changing scenic sailing tours along the most beautiful coastlines in the world. We spoke with the founder of Corporate Sailing, Piero Moschetta, to learn about the challenges they face in the tourism industry today.
What makes Corporate Sailing different from your competitors?
We offer unique destinations that our competitors do not, such as “castaway islands”. We also have traditional packages such as the Caribbean Islands. No matter what you are looking for, our brand new Tèramar product line (www.teramar.it) is sure to offer you a life-changing travel experience! Tèramar combines the traditional Italian words “Tèra” (Land) and “Mar” (Sea) in a whole new way. This unique product line allows our guest to literally “Discover the Land, from the Sea”.
How do you manage all of your business relationships and keep them engaged in your company?
60% by email ; 20% by phone or Skype ; 20% by face-to-face contact
We use email, phone and social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) to keep our clients engaged. We attend a few trade show events throughout the year, but the high costs mean we have to be selective about which events we attend. This is one way we find new partners. We also host cocktail hours and dinners for clients to maintain great relationships.
What advice would you give to a new company as they try to find and build relationships with new business partners?
You must make it a priority to be very committed to your new partners so that they feel that the business relationship that you have together is very important to you. This means staying engaged in what their goals are and try to find new ways to help them grow. It’s challenging to do so, but worth it in the end.
What is the most challenging or tedious part of your job on a day-to-day basis?
Challenging: We are constantly trying to find and create new products and offering unique destinations that are far better than average.
Tedious: We spend a lot of time on administration (rates, emails, messaging, etc.) which takes up a lot of my time. I would rather use that time to help customers plan a trip and increasing sales.
What do the next five years have in store for Corporate Sailing?
In 12 months: We just launched a new website, www.teramar.it, that is dedicated to our “Land & Sea” products to help promote our company. This is where we will feature our unique product offerings and hope to continually improve the way that people interact with the website.
In 3 – 5 years: We would like to expand our global portfolio by working with new companies all around the world, especially in Europe and the United States.
How can TourConnect help your business?
While always trying to offer unique destinations is great for our client’s experience, the logistics of finding or creating these destinations takes up a lot of our time. TourConnect’s PartnerFinder is making it much easier and less time consuming to find great partners. This is critical to our company being able to continually offer great experiences to our clients.
I am also excited about the vision of TourConnect. We clearly place great value in our business relationships. TourConnect’s messaging will help us keep our partners engaged and help us grow and develop the relationships we already have. It’s exciting to bring the industry together like they are.
We thank Piero for his time and for opening up as our first profile in the Industry Insider blog series. Understanding the common challenges we face is one of the first steps to changing our industry for the better. In our next Industry Insider blog, we’ll look at a supplier trying to grow their shoulder-season business. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date on future blogs.
Have you or your company experienced these challenges? How have you addressed them? Comment below, so we can all learn and relate.
Would you like to be featured in an upcoming TourConnect Industry Insider blog? Send us your details, and we’ll be in touch soon.
