Zicasso Unveils Travel Industry's First Comprehensive Sales and Marketing Solution for Luxury Custom Tours Market

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Handcrafted Travel

Zicasso has been a great way to expand our reach to luxury travelers and grow our business.

Mountain View, CA (PRWEB) September 30, 2010

Zicasso, an online luxury travel referral service that matches discerning travelers with select top 10% travel specialists, today unveiled the custom travel industry's first comprehensive sales and marketing solution. Aimed at travel agents and retail tour operators who focus on selling luxury custom tours, Zicasso's solution delivers a reliable, risk-free way to acquire targeted leads, increase sales, and enhance productivity. In tandem, the solution enables travel specialists to outsource much of their marketing, sales training, and technology tools needs to Zicasso, allowing them to focus instead on selling and further developing their expertise in destinations and traveler activities.

Today's online travel websites focus on automated self-service that enables users to research, plan and book a trip on their own. This leaves travel agents in the custom travel market with a strategic need to revise their ability to compete and remain viable by focusing on trips that are complex to book and luxury-oriented. However, complex luxury trips require deep specialization in order to design multi-faceted itineraries with unique experiences. As travel agents specialize, it has also become more challenging and expensive to find new luxury clients who happen to seek their particular specialization, whether it's destination- or activity-focused. Zicasso solves this problem squarely.

"Our comprehensive solution delivers the targeted luxury clients that are matched to a specialized travel agent's skills, as well as the tools and best practices for them to continually increase sales conversion and productivity," noted Brian Tan, founder and CEO of Zicasso. "We're particularly pleased that Zicasso's trusted travel reviews give our partners an increasing competitive advantage as they build their reputation online based on real travelers' experience with their service."

Travel Agency Perspective: Business Growth
"Zicasso has been a great way to expand our reach to luxury travelers and grow our business. Working with Zicasso has been an efficient and rewarding partnership," commented Corinne Goodman, owner of Down Under Endeavors, a luxury travel agency based in Chicago. "Since we are very niche in our service, the parameters we can set with Zicasso for lead qualification ensure we are matched with the right leads. The client is happy to find a specialist, and we are happy to find a traveler who seeks our professional skills. Further, Zicasso's best practices and personalized sales coaching have improved our closing sales skills."

Four Elements of Comprehensive Solution
Zicasso's comprehensive solution surpasses typical lead generation services, providing four key components that include:

•     Targeted Luxury Leads: Zicasso's solution delivers relevant, pre-qualified, highly-targeted leads for custom luxury travel. The leads provide detailed customer information, including travel styles, services needed, interests, budgets, etc. Further, the leads are provided with no upfront charge, so travel specialists do not incur any risk or capital investment. Travel specialists only pay commission when these leads convert into an actual sale.
•     Web-Based Client Relationship Management (CRM) Application: Seamlessly integrated with the leads matched on Zicasso.com, this industry-first application from Zicasso enables travel specialists to manage client relationships efficiently throughout the sales cycle. The entire workflow from the traveler's profile, trip request, email communications, itineraries, sales status, as well as alerts for follow up are all organized in an integrated system. Customizable response templates ensure consistent, professional client communication. Travel specialists can easily search, monitor, and track client communications with automatic reminders when it is time to follow up. Managers can assign leads to specific agents and the entire team can work together, monitor activities and reminders, as well as review and analyze sales techniques that worked best. Clients are automatically invited to write reviews upon return from their trips. Repeat clients of Zicasso are also noted so that travel specialist partners give them particular attention.
•     Industry's Only Trusted Travel Reviews: Zicasso has introduced the industry's only transparent ratings and reviews system for travel specialists to build their online reputation based on bona fide reviews from real travelers who made actual purchases and completed their trips arranged by Zicasso travel specialist partners. Zicasso's Travel Reviews provides consumers with unfettered access to peruse possible travel companies, as well as peace-of-mind that they are working with reputable travel specialists; importantly, all reviews are trusted. All travel companies that are part Zicasso's select network must maintain 3.5 out of a 5 star rating system in order to remain in it.
•     Sales Best Practices Coupled with Personalized Coaching: Another unique industry-first, Zicasso's solution provides the most comprehensive set of proven best practices for selling custom tours, refined over the years and based on analysis of thousands of trips planned on Zicasso. Coupled with the road-tested sales practices, Zicasso's staff also provides ongoing sales coaching for partners based on real-time observations and benchmarks throughout the actual sales cycle. This accelerates a travel specialist's path of continuous improvement, constantly raising the bar on increasing sales conversion rates, as well as improving sales efficiency and follow-up times.

Follow Zicasso and learn more at:
Zicasso Facebook Page
Zicasso on Twitter
Zicasso on YouTube

About Zicasso
Featured in Travel + Leisure magazine's "Best Travel Websites" of 2010, Zicasso is a distinctive, online luxury travel referral service that combines the convenience of the Internet and blends it with white glove, offline service from top 10% travel specialists. Zicasso gives busy, discerning consumers a hassle-free way to obtain customized, unique, and authentic travel experiences rarely found on existing online sites. Ideal for planning complex trips, Zicasso saves travelers time and delivers best value by matching them to pre-qualified top travel specialists who compete to provide personalized, handcrafted itineraries. Based in Mountain View, CA, Zicasso is a privately-held company. For more information, please visit http://www.zicasso.com.

Editor's Note: Artwork available upon request.

Press Contact:
Carmen Hughes
Ignite P.R.
W: 650.227.3280 ext.1
C: 650.576.6444
carmen(at)ignitepr(dot)com

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