How Destination Weddings Changed The Course of My Business

Have you ever been curious about the world of destination weddings? Maybe you’ve seen pictures of exotic locations and have witnessed how specialists, like me get to travel to tropical destinations to check them out and experience them first hand. That is a big lure to this business, I mean, who doesn’t love to travel? Who wouldn’t want to HAVE to go to Jamaica for “work”! Right?

Starting Out Lost

When I started my travel agency, I didn’t know what I was doing, and I certainly didn’t realize how vast the travel world was. I quickly figured out that there was NO WAY I could learn it all. I ultimately ended up in the romance travel niche (another story for another blog post) and found my passion. I enjoyed working with happy couples during this important and memorable time in their lives.

The Wheel Starts to Move (Slowly)   

As I developed a marketing strategy (and redid it a couple hundred times), made a website (and redid that a dozen times), attended bridal shows, placed ads and spent more money than I’d care to recall, I did grow my business and gain clientele. Victory, right? Well…

I quickly realized that while my efforts were paying off (I had sales, I was busy working with a lot of clients) the ROI wasn’t what it should be. I knew I needed to do something different, and I was always interested in destination weddings but was a little hesitant to do it as it seemed a bit overwhelming. There were so many unknowns and I just didn’t have the confidence in myself, you know?

Taking a Leap of Faith

After a pep talk from my wonderful husband and a leap of faith, I put an ad in a magazine and got my first client! After successfully planning this first wedding (with no outside help), I realized how much more profitable a wedding group was vs a honeymoon couple.

So Much More Profitable

A wedding couple comes with friends and family, so one client turns into 25, 50 or 100. When you look at it from a marketing perspective, I only have to catch one big fish instead of catching dozens of little fish. This epiphany was a game changer to my time and my pocketbook!

My Weekends Are Mine!

Besides the excellent profitability of planning destination weddings, the other part that I soon discovered was that I didn’t need to be at the wedding.  I worked with brides and the resort ahead of time, making sure that the wedding was planned and going to be set up exactly the way the bride wanted it.  Once the pre-planning is done, the onsite resort team took care of everything, making me look like a rock star and creating lifelong happy clients.  And what did I get to do on the day of the wedding!   RELAX!