Better Together: Why a Travel Advisor-Tourism Board Relationship Can Be a Winning Combination

Theresa Jackson, a personal travel designer for Enlightened Journeys Travel, an affiliate of Travel Experts, first met Omar Banihani about eight years ago at the Visit Jordan booth at Virtuoso Travel Week, where Jackson devoured the table’s travel brochures and grilled Banihani, the marketing director, North America for Visit Jordan, about the destination. 

Shortly after, Jackson attended a Virtuoso fam to the country, where she continued to impress Banihani with her professionalism, attentiveness and respect for the destination while on the ground.

“I remember Theresa being cool, calm and collected,” Banihani recalled. “She knew a lot about the Middle East, and she understood the culture better than her colleagues. She was not just there to be on a fam; she was there inspecting everything. She asked the best questions, and she was really invested. As a destination, you pick up on that.”

She was not just there to be on a fam; she was there inspecting everything … As a destination, you pick up on that.

Since then, the two have forged an unwavering personal and professional bond; Jackson has been a presenter for Visit Jordan during travel industry events and, at times, has served as Banihani’s personal travel consultant. Banihani, meanwhile, has provided Jackson with a reliable point of contact for a destination she sells, and a steady stream of information and resources that she can use to better serve her luxury clientele.

Both admit that such a close relationship can be unusual in the travel industry, but Banihani and Jackson hope they can serve as a case study, of sorts, on the rewards of a mutually beneficial travel agent-tourism board partnership.

“It's not just the friendship, but it's also my respect for her — for her brains, basically,” Banihani said. “And for her take on things, as well as her really long experience and very specific experience. It’s different than a lot of other [working relationships].”

“I needed to know Omar, and I really needed the background of the tourism board and to really work with them, rather than either jump to a DMC that’s in the country that I didn't know, or work with a larger company that happened to bring people in,” Jackson said. “My travelers [want] deep immersion into the destination. So, it's important for me that they be really connected to the tourism board."

Why Should Travel Advisors Invest in a Relationship With a Tourism Board?

The advisor-tourism board relationship is often underutilized, Jackson says, because many advisors assume a DMC or supplier should be the first point of contact, or they make the mistake of reaching out to the tourism board with a basic or general question, without first doing their own preliminary research.

“It's unfortunate, because advisors are busy, and a lot of them are generalists,” she said. “Unless [you specialize], you’re just casting [a wide net]. All I see on travel advisor Facebook [groups] are people asking, ‘Who do you use for X?’ and a lot of times my response is, ‘You have to reach out to the tourism board first, because you need to know what you’re talking about [regarding the destination] when you present something to the client.'”

A connection to a destination’s tourism board has the potential to make a travel advisor look like a rockstar, according to Jackson, noting that Banihani has often helped steer her toward itinerary ideas or activities that are specifically catered toward her clients’ unique preferences of deep destination immersion, luxury and adventure.

Why Should a Tourism Board Keep Up With Travel Advisors?

On the other side of the coin, Banihani says he has made it his mission to keep his “finger on the pulse” of the travel advisor community so he can better serve them and the destination of Jordan.

Because travel advisors are responsible for a high percentage (51%) of bookings to Jordan, Banihani feels it’s important that he adapts to their needs. While Visit Jordan formerly relied on travel brochures as the main form of communication with the trade, Banihani says the tourism board has evolved tremendously. He consistently updates destination specialist modules, hosts webinars, sends surveys to travel advisors to create destination forecasts, and attends consortia conferences to seek out advisors who are specifically interested in selling the destination.

“I'm constantly researching, and trying to understand what travel advisors need, so I can provide them with it,” he said. “And I’m also always very real. I'm running around wearing a travel advisor's hat and sitting inside of a tourism board. And that’s what makes us different.”

I’m running around wearing a travel advisor’s hat and sitting inside of a tourism board. And that’s what makes us different.

Feedback from travel advisors even sparked an idea for a Jordan Masterclass fam, taking place next week, during which groups of travel advisors will be led around the country by Visit Jordan’s preferred on-the-ground partners. 

“I heard so much about DMCs; I did a survey and found that advisors who sold travel to the Middle East were much more likely to book directly with a DMC. So, we came up with a Masterclass fam, where the Jordanian DMCs are hosting advisors in the destination. This was 100% because the travel advisors told me what they needed, and it was me responding to the data that I received from the advisors.”

Working Together to Drive Business

Both Jackson and Banihani acknowledge that Jordan can sometimes be a harder sell for clients. According to Banihani’s forecasts, about 10,000 travel advisors currently sell travel to the Middle East, and about 4,000 of those had bookings to Jordan in 2021 and 2022 (for Jackson, trips to Jordan represent about 5% of her overall bookings).

But qualifying clients — or, in Banihani’s case, travel advisors — has helped steer the right travelers to the destination.

“You have to be confident as a destination about what you are and who is going to come there,” Banihani said. “I'm not in the business of converting everyone to travel to Jordan; I'm there to talk to the [travel advisors who] are ripe for the picking. If an advisor already has business in the Middle East or Africa, that’s [great] from a marketing and advertising sense, but from a business relationship sense, if you sit there and say, ‘My clients would love this,” that's all I need to hear. We can talk, and this relationship does not have to be about me sending you photos or brochures.”

I'm not in the business of converting everyone to travel to Jordan … if you sit there and say, ‘My clients would love this,’ that's all I need to hear. We can talk, and this relationship does not have to be about me sending you photos or brochures.

“That’s the good thing about a good tourism board, too,” Jackson added. “Knowing Omar helps me, in a business sense, get out there and say the words that need to be said to the clientele that does go [to Jordan]. I’m not just pitching stuff into the dark. My enthusiasm isn’t going to change someone’s mind who never wanted to go to the Middle East. My enthusiasm is going to [spark with certain] people, who the next year, or in five years, are going to come to me and say, ‘We’re ready to go to Jordan.’”