Brian Jewell (00:05.934)
Well, hey there everybody. Welcome to Gather and Go, the podcast that helps you plan, promote, and lead better trips. I'm Brian Jewell. I am your host. I am feeling energized today. I hope you are too. And I am so glad that you decided to spend some time with me today. I'm gonna do everything I can as always to make that investment of your time worth your while.

Now, today I have a really great featured conversation with Harish Troff of Indus Travel. You may not know about Indus Travel, particularly if you are not in Canada, but they are one of the biggest packaged travel companies in Canada. Harish has been a big part of their growth over the past few years. And in our featured conversation today, he is going to share how successful tour operators replace passion with systems as they grow.

He's going to share some of the strategies that keep every departure full. And he's going to give us his insights on why the best marketing isn't about being everywhere, but about reaching the right travelers. This is really helpful and practical information for anybody trying to sell more trips. I can't wait for you to hear it. Before we get there, though, let's start with some travel news you may have missed.

The FAA is betting AI can help reduce flight delays. The Federal Aviation Administration says new artificial intelligence-powered software could begin easing flight delays within the next two years by helping air traffic controllers manage congestion before it develops. The agency recently awarded an $875 million contract to Boston-based Airspace Intelligence, whose cloud-based system combines airline schedules, weather,

Airport capacity and other operational data into a shared view of the nation's airspace before flights depart. FAA officials say the technology can identify potential bottlenecks days, weeks, or even months in advance, giving airlines and controllers more time to adjust flight schedules and routes before delays begin to ripple through the system. The first phase of the software is expected to begin operating this fall.

Brian Jewell (02:27.736)
With the FAA aiming to have the system fully implemented by the end of 2028. Aviation analysts recently told Travel Weekly that the technology has the potential to improve traffic flow, but cautioned that the FAA's aggressive implementation timeline may prove difficult to achieve.

Well, before we move on, I want to take just a minute and share a little bit of news from us. If you are relatively new to the group travel industry or to planning group travel, or if you want to learn more about planning group travel, we have an amazing free resource to help you start a group travel program from the ground up. It's called Travel Free and Bring Your Friends. It's a PDF that you can download.

on our website. In this PDF, you learn the inside secrets of the travel industry that experienced group travel planners have been using for decades to craft extraordinary, unforgettable trips. You'll find things like how to build trips your followers will love, how to get free travel for yourself, and how to monetize your group travel following. All of this and much, much more, it's a

Beautiful and extensive and well designed PDF. And it is yours absolutely free on our website. You can get it today at group travel leader dot com slash travel free. I'll also put that link in the show notes to make it easy for you to access. Group travel leader.com slash travel free. Just fill in your name and email address there. We will send the download link right over to you. And you can use this resource.

To immediately start leveling up your group travel game. I hope you will take advantage of it today. Grouptraveleader.com slash travel free. Well, it's just about time for us to get into our featured conversation with Harish Schroff. Before we do, let me remind you that you can find a wrap-up of some of the most important things Harish had to say in the show notes for this episode.

Brian Jewell (04:36.268)
Show notes, of course, are the text that shows below the audio player wherever you are listening. And you can find show notes for, well, every episode we've ever done, over a hundred episodes, on our website at grouptraveleader.com slash podcast. And after the interview, I'm also going to come back and give a quick overview of what I thought some of Harish's most important points were, as well as some of my thoughts on those topics. I hope you will stick around.

for that wrap up and then afterward I'm gonna take a minute and discuss the problems that AI can and can't solve in your travel business. That is the topic of today's hot minute. You won't want to miss that. We'll be right back with Aris Strof.

Brian Jewell (05:32.494)
All right, everybody, my guest today is a 30-year travel industry veteran whose career has included work in India, the Philippines, and North America. Today he's the VP of sales at Indus Travel, where he works with alumni, nonprofit, and other group leaders to plan memorable adventures around the world. He's also the author of Mastering the Art of Sales, a practical sales guide filled with real-life stories, proven strategies for success, and powerful lessons from every conversation you lead.

Harishrof, welcome to the podcast.

Harish Shroff (06:05.688)
Thank you very much for having me. My pleasure.

Brian Jewell (06:08.278)
Yeah, I'm so excited to have you here today. You have such a global perspective on travel. I want you to tell our listeners the story of how you got specifically into the group travel business, because that's not really where you started in your in your travel career, is it?

Harish Shroff (06:23.288)
100%. I didn't start from there. Yes, my love for travel started at a very young age. Just the excitement of boarding a flight, traveling to a new destination, and seeing the world was in my vision. But the real turning point, the true mentorship came from my brother, Arjun Shroff. He was already a seasoned veteran with 15 years of experience in travel, and he owned a successful travel company in the Philippines. And when he

Took me under his wings. I had the incredible opportunity to work along him. He taught me the foundation grids of the business, everything from complexity of issuing tickets, managing clients, and designing the intricate itineraries. From there, my journey actually evolved. I moved to India. I stepped into a global company for handling large-scale group travel, business group travel. And I found myself managing these corporate.

Delegates, major international shows in Germany, like GIFA, Drupa, coordinating all these moving parts to make these trips successful. Eventually, I called Canada as my home. I moved here in 2000 and five. I'm fortunate to be with Indus Travel since 2009. So nearly the last two decades, my whole focus here in North America also has been

only group travel. I completely love this side of the business. That is gives me immense fulfillment when you take these people to different destinations and they enjoy these destinations and when they come back they give you these satisfying moments that they had or something that they learn, which is really rewarding. So when I look back, it has been an amazing ride. I didn't start with group travel, but slowly and gradually I have moved here.

And we've seen a lot, like nine eleven, the global pandemic, now the geopolitical conflict. But I'm passionate that I'm still part of the travel industry.

Brian Jewell (08:32.108)
Yeah, I I love that. It sounds like you and I have been through many of the same things in group travel over much of the same time span. You know, one of the th one of the things that I have seen and certainly a lot of people have commented on before is that many tour companies have not exactly thrived in the wake of some of those issues, you know, 9-11, the financial crisis, COVID, we could go on and on. Not all have thrived. We've certainly seen many tour companies close.

Your company has been just growing incredibly over that same time period. So I wonder if you have some ideas why your group tour organization is thriving when so many others have struggled recently.

Harish Shroff (09:15.182)
Sure. Sure. There are lot of points, but I'll really highlight what I feel will make a good point for this discussion. When you look at a corporate structure, people talk about managing director, CEO. These are traditional titles, which means the managing director is somebody who gives you strategic decision and direction. And the CEO is the executive leader who actually executes the vision. So these are, you know, potential titles and things that grow the company.

At Indus Travel, our energy and synergy is actually coming from our managing director, that's Praveen Sayal. He's a true visionary. He has brought some amazing innovation to the industry in the last 25 years. He's actually grown from this boutique travel company of six people to a massive corporate international company with almost 50 staff and really grown the company.

So, what I'm trying to say or bring the idea is that a brilliant idea without execution gets you nowhere. And an executive without a clear vision leads to chaos. So the true result is through the energy of all these things. While our managing director gives us the direction, I also want to highlight that we have amazing executives that are leaders in our company that have been with us for

15, 16, 18 years, our product director, our customer service, flight operation. Myself, I've been almost two decades with the company and managing global sales. So I would say everyone has poured in their dedication to the infrastructure. So it is really the vision and the leadership execution that has brought the good result or the success behind our growth.

Brian Jewell (11:08.398)
Yeah, I love that. And it's always incredible to me when I see organizations that have retained longtime employees, you know, for a decade, two decades, something in that range. Do you have any sense of what it is about your company that makes people want to stay and really spend a huge chunk of their career there when so many other roles in tourism seem to turn over on a yearly basis?

Harish Shroff (11:34.902)
there are many things that affect the person, the company, when they are growing. So when you start a company, it's really fueled with raw passion. You know, you have immense love, energy, and effort that you're pouring into that. And everybody does start a business to succeed. You know, nobody is starting to put a business to fail. So the early energy, the the drive, the magic that comes on the table.

Is what is really needed. That's first thing. And then you get your first 10 clients, then you have a way or a system to handle them. Then you get, say, your hundred or thousand customers. And as you grow, you will realize over the stage that that old singular formula is not anymore sustainable for the growth of the company. So as you scale, you also have to change and evolve. So that is really

One thing that is very important for any company. The love, the passion still remains the core value, but initially it is 80% and your systems are 20%. As you grow, your core value still remains the same, but it becomes like a 20% of your foundation, and your systems become 80% of your growth. So as you are growing, you really need to add more and more system. You can have

You know, effective systems to match your volumes. Only then A the people will be happy because they are seeing the part of the growth. They are surviving and thriving in the operational infrastructure growth and things like that. So yeah, these are few few things that are quite key and important.

Brian Jewell (13:20.056)
Yeah, Harish, you've you've described systems to me before as as part of something that is necessary for, you know, going from a a company where, you know, there's a lot of magic happening to something where it's truly professional and sustainable. I I wonder if you could help us understand why systems are so important for scaling up. Your your tour company has scaled quite a bit recently. So what are the systems that you have found to be the ones that really have helped you to scale from where you started to where you are today?

Harish Shroff (13:50.958)
Sure. When you talk about scaling, there are quite a few things and the checklist can be overwhelming. It can grow so fast, you know. But if you look at the real gist of it, if you look at the real two things that will help you in scaling, one is sales and the other is marketing. This is especially true right now because as we stand at the edge of a massive shift of AI, the itinary planning, the operation, all is gonna change rapidly.

AI is going to completely game change the backend efficiency of the travel companies. It can make content easier, but it will be harder to trust what is real, what is fake, you know, things like that. because AI is suddenly going to be everybody's tool. They're going to have beautiful websites, amazing videos, landing pages, flashy testimonials. The digital landscape is going to be very, very crowded and noisy in some time. You will see as

Everybody suddenly used that. So eventually it will go to sales, which means when the customer is ready to talk, or when the customer is ready to buy, how you deal with them, or how you represent your company, or how does a salesperson talk to them will determine how much they know, the nuances of travel, the custom itinerary, the destination, and the confidence they build in the customer to book. So the human element becomes.

actual competitive advantage sales, which is the heartbeat of the travel, is is the main thing. And marketing, definitely, if you have both a very good bulletproof marketing system to get the customers through this noise to your company. And secondly, having this exceptional sales people to sp speak to them, this is what will help companies to grow or scale in the near future.

Brian Jewell (15:49.036)
Yeah, I completely agree. I think a lot of people start travel companies because they love travel and they love leading travel. Maybe they haven't thought much about sales and marketing, but you're only you're gonna hit a ceil a ceiling. You're only gonna go so far if you don't have those systems in place. so that's that's really good perspective there. now, if you do have good systems in place, what is a reasonable growth curve for somebody to expect? How quickly can a smart travel company grow? Are there limits?

you know, external limits that are going to hold their growth back.

Harish Shroff (16:23.022)
Most of the partners that I have spoken, or most of the people that I have seen in travel industry, start their business as a single unit: one person, two person, five people. And in the beginning, they always have this hustler mentality. You know, you're absolutely doing everything. You're the marketing manager, you're the sales manager, you're the account manager, you're answering clients' email at 2 a.m. in the morning.

You're balancing your books. Yes, in the beginning, you will have to do everything. But when the business actually starts to kick off, you will have to change the way you do business. For example, if you have brought your business from zero to say half a million, and now you want to go to your next million and two million, then you have to really have a change in your mindset and change in the system, which we already spoke. A, you need to have better systems in place. B

You have to start adding more people because there's a certain limit, how much you can do or how much you can go and how much you can do in each step. So adding more people, adding more processes is what will help you. So the hard part is to let go and delegate. and also in delegation is really trusting the people that they will do your things. So sometimes that is a little bit of limitation.

With some managers and corporates that I have seen that it's very hard for them. So they don't want to let go the control. They feel responsible for everything. because they have still the startup thought in their mind that this is mine and this is where I want to take it. But the more they let go, the more they trust on people. these new generation is really amazing. They can scale up very fast. Yeah.

Brian Jewell (18:13.762)
Yeah, that is such good advice really for anybody leading an organization of any size is that if you try to hold on to c control yourself, you're going to limit the effectiveness and the the growth of your organization. so something else you and I have talked before about is how so many travel sellers could be more profitable if they were able to fill more seats on their departures. You know, you think of the tour company that charters a motor coach and

They may have 45, 50 seats on that coach. If they're only rolling with 20 people, that's a very inefficient way to do business. And it's it's having a really difficult impact on their profit their their their profit margins. so I I know you have tackled this, you have dealt a lot with it. What have you discovered are effective ways for filling those extra empty seats to kind of push a departure past the profitability line to where it's actually, you know, making a meaningful contribution to your bottom line?

Harish Shroff (19:10.766)
Sure. So as you know, the travel industry is a high dependent industry on inventory. If a hotel room is not sold today, it's a loss. If an airline seat is not sold today, it's a loss. Exactly the same way when you have group departures and it's very critical to fill, say, 90 days or 120 days before departure. You we have tried and we have a proof system that we have put in place and we always offer that to our group leaders.

And I would love to share some of the points here that there are many things that go into the system, but the main thing is you have to find out where your clients are, what their interests are, and where would they like to go next. To have clarity on that, it also takes sometimes like a survey, research, and understanding your market. You cannot just put out a product because you feel like there's always a wave in the market. Right now, Japan is doing good.

So you have to follow the trends also. Second, when you start marketing the trip, it has to be well in advance, six to eight months, give enough time for the money for the momentum to build up. Finally, we all know social media, we already spoke about AI. You have to follow a certain rule. There is a theory called Rule of Seven, which states your prospective customer will see or understand.

when they see this message for six to seven times. And this theory was actually proved back in 1930 and it's done by the Hollywood industry that the first time when a customer sees something, they will just pass by. The second time when they see it may catch their attention, whether it's Amalfi Coast or Machu Picchu, and as they see the same thing second or third time, they might be ready to book. So

It's very important that you do some of the steps consecutively over time to build the confidence of the customer, to bring them to a stage where they are ready to book with you, not just follow one pattern or one system all the time.

Brian Jewell (21:22.786)
Yeah, that is fascinating. The the rule of seven. I think you're exactly right. And it's, you know, y you said it was in the 1930s that people first figured that out. So we're we're almost a hundred years into the rule of seven. I would say if anything, it the number might have gotten bigger over those hundred years because we're just so inundated with advertising now. there are so many different promotional channels available to a travel marketer today.

I assume not all of them are as effective as the others. So I'm curious which ones you have found to be the most effective in helping group leaders actually fill their trips.

Harish Shroff (21:58.69)
Yeah, yeah. You know, some of the things that we are talking today are actually tied up with each other. So for example, same thing for filling up the seats. One strategy will not work for everybody. So you really have to pick a channel. You really have to pick a system that works for you. a lot of people think that they have to be everywhere. No, that's not true. You you cannot be on every single media platform. You cannot be running ads.

You cannot just do cold email blast and hope that the booking will come in. On the contrary, you have to build your own community. You can have, I've had group leaders who have their own WhatsApp group. And when they announce in that WhatsApp group, the trip fills up. So as they say, your vibe attracts your tribe, the same formula applies to your clients. Know your client, know where they are, showcase them your product that suits them rather than sending a normal general

To everybody. So the two points that I want to highlight today definitely is first, personalize your communication. That is the key going forward. If you have a generic email saying and you're sending it to thousand strangers that, I have a tour going to Portugal and so and so, it will not really have effect. It will not really make the association. If you are running for a club, then you formulate the message talking about the club.

If you're running for a yoga center, then you formulate the message talking about the yoga center. So be mindful, build a trip around your audience. That'll be the game changer. And the second thing that we have found very, very crucial and important is webinars and presentation. They are incredibly powerful. When you post out a meeting saying on this day we are doing a presentation on Portugal or

We are doing a webinar on a yoga tour to Costa Rica. People come, attend, they ask all the questions they have, they understand the itinerary. And we have found that 50 to 60 percent of the people who attend are generally booking on the tour. So it's quite high, which is rewarding. That means you share the stories, you talk about the whole destination, you talk about weather, and really make them

Harish Shroff (24:22.202)
come on board with that trip. Finally, which is the point which I already gave in the in the beginning, that is create your own groups, have a Facebook group, WhatsApp group, keep posting some inspiration, and then you know your clientele, then offer them the trip that is really for them. So you have to have variety of channels rather than just focusing on one thing to fill up the seats.

Brian Jewell (24:48.076)
Yeah, I love that tip about the webinars, especially. I think that if you're seeing 50 plus percent conversion off webinar attendance, that that is huge. Maybe the most effective marketing channel of any we've talked about today. I imagine the w webinars are also helpful for instilling trust, especially if, you know, like your company, you're going to destinations all over the world. Some of them are are places people haven't been. They may feel kind of exotic. So I'm curious how you

Instill confidence in your travelers or your potential travelers that they can trust you with feeling safe, feeling comfortable, going to these places that are totally foreign to them and yet having a high level of confidence that it's going to be a great experience.

Harish Shroff (25:35.062)
I hundred percent agree with you that most of the travelers have traveled in the Caribbean. And when they hear the word exotic, it either gives them a thought of altitudes in Peru, corners of Egypt, or some iconic monuments in Southeast Asia. So it brings two distinct feelings. One, either they are excited, they are ready to immerse into these destinations, or

They are worried about the safety, logistics, and the unknown. So at Indus Travel, we work totally to build the confidence, removing these unknown things, and we have formulated a very nice three-pillar system for doing that. First of all, we don't rely on third-party faceless contractors in the destination. We have built a very extensive, far-reaching network with our local DMCs.

they have offices in the ground destination. Our staff, the product manager has traveled to all these destinations. They have experienced their trip even before we start selling. The local DMCs, they are fluent in the language, they know the history, they know the culture, so they're not reading from a book or they're not doing a Google search. When a group arrives, they are not stepping into a chaos, they are being met at the airport, they have a trusted expert.

And all these details are managed on a proper day-to-day basis. Second, I think after COVID, a lot of things have changed. That is, the experience of travelers is on small groups. Capping the group size really helps. You know, we heavily focus on small groups with around 20 to 25 guests and making sure that the tour director is able to attend to all.

Like when they are at a monument and giving description about the places, they're able to hear them well. It's not overwhelming. these are not big buses with lot of people getting down and getting up, w wasting a lot of time. And the final thing that is the sustainable tourism, which we are part of it. We want to make sure that that's our core responsibility and travel philosophy.

Harish Shroff (27:55.97)
We work hand in hand with local communities. they want to make sure that these guests are welcome as travelers and guests who are looking at these destinations and places to learn rather than intruder or they're just here to destroy their local things. So we really want to make sure that travel remains in the future also the same way by very respectful.

And learning destination rather than just going and looking at places and just taking some pictures. Yeah.

Brian Jewell (28:32.344)
Yeah. that's so good. And it will make the destinations excited to have you come back too, instead of, you know, rolling their eyes and say, gee, here comes here comes Harish's group again. These people are the worst. Yeah. No, they're they'll they'll be excited that you're coming back. I I love that. Now, I wanna ask you one more thing about the scale that you have reached, you and Industravel have reached. you mentioned you've got this great contract of DMs, you know, network of DMCs, you're you're

planners go all over the world before you build itineraries. I'm wondering how does a smaller travel organization work with you to leverage that scale to their own advantage so that you know, they can use your expertise and your well developed network to ultimately benefit their travelers and and maybe help them as a company as well.

Harish Shroff (29:25.39)
Sure, sure. So we've been in business since 2001. Right now we're celebrating 25 years. We have sent hundreds and thousands of passengers across different destinations. Every single year we are growing. The last year itself, we sent around 16 18,000 passengers. Because of this massive volume, we have built an amazing network of ground suppliers and incredible amount of buying power. The ground suppliers, the airline,

And other partners are always reaching out to us to fill up the seats or sell a new destination. With this kind of advantage that we bring to the table, smaller organizations can actually offer this to their clients as value for money. Our immense buying power gives them the huge leverage of good pricing, good service, excellent experience for the customer, so they can take advantage of all that.

rather than going and working out on their own and putting all this effort to restart or re-engineer new things. So once they come to us, they're able to get the same product, good quality at a reasonable price. And some of the companies have also approached us with white label products. So their name, their brand will be shown on on the tour, the documents,

When the client arrives, their name card will be hold for the customers to see. So, whatever they need, we can help them with that also. And all these products that we have are always going to be evergreen because you look at destinations like Japan, Morocco, Peru, Vietnam, every year there's a growth. Now that the people have traveled to the Sun destination, they are looking to travel to these new

destinations and people want good product at a very decent price. We try to bring down the price by not printing a lot of brochures, not spending a lot of advertisement. We work with our travel partners and we bring them this advantage which they can offer to their customers. So at the end, these small organizations can definitely benefit by partnering with us.

Brian Jewell (31:43.5)
Yeah. And it sounds like with your your scale and your buying power, even after, you know, paying your profit margin, some of these people may be getting better prices for their customers than they could get themselves just because they don't have the buying power. Is that accurate?

Harish Shroff (31:59.438)
Hundred percent, hundred percent. Yes, they will be benefiting because they will not be able to get the same deal that we are able to get due to our buying power. Yep.

Brian Jewell (32:09.112)
Yeah, that's great. So for a group leader or a small tour company that may be interested in working with you, what is the best way for them to reach out to you or to learn about Endus or to start that conversation?

Harish Shroff (32:22.094)
Sure. We have our website that is Indus.travel, or they can reach out to me. My email address is harish at indus.travel. And my telephone number 1866-978-2997-Extention 814. I have a team of 10 business development managers. We will be more than glad to help you and work with you on any kind of group.

Brian Jewell (32:48.258)
Yeah, fantastic. We will link to all of that in the show notes to make it easy for people to find. now, Harsh, before I let you go, we have some questions we ask everybody. These are just for fun. So there's no no pressure here. first of all, when you book travel, do you book a window seat or an aisle seat?

Harish Shroff (33:06.488)
prefer to book a window seat. I love to see outside. I want to see the clouds. If I'm going through the mountain area, I want to see the cliff. And when I'm before I'm landing in a destination, I want to take a short video of the destination where I'm landing so I can post. So yeah, definitely a window seat.

Brian Jewell (33:24.64)
It just never gets old, does it, looking at that view from the clouds? I I love it. So what is something in your carry on bag that you would not travel without?

Harish Shroff (33:36.064)
There are quite a few things, but as I mentioned, I love to travel and I always wanna travel with my camera. these days without a camera, people are just not able to capture the in the the spirit of the travel. But I only do it for fun. I wanna showcase my clients, I wanna showcase people what it has to offer. So I definitely travel with my camera.

Brian Jewell (34:00.52)
Gotcha. So you have a a a camera separate from your phone that you use for

Harish Shroff (34:03.886)
Trips. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Jewell (34:05.966)
Fantastic. Now, if you had a free airline pass and a week with nothing else to do, where would you go?

Harish Shroff (34:14.296)
My top two best destinations that I will love to go back again and again, one is Israel. I have been there. I have walked on the footsteps where Jesus walked. I just love it. Their food, their culture. And the second place is South Africa. The wildlife, the winery is just unbelievable. No matter how many times you go there, you will always love it.

Brian Jewell (34:36.792)
Yeah, I I could not agree more with both of those. Both a bit of a hike from North America. You have to invest some time to get there, especially South Africa. You have to invest a lot of time to get there. But it is definitely worthwhile for sure. so our last question is what what is one thing you have seen or done on the road that you wish you could go back and experience again with somebody you love?

Harish Shroff (35:01.87)
So every time I travel, I honestly want to get into the local culture. I've been to Morocco where these ladies are actually baking the bread. So, you know, being with them and really cooking. I've been to Italy where you are cooking with some local communities. So anytime I travel I love to go back and be with the local community to see their culture and understand their processes, just brings

So so much of pleasure.

Brian Jewell (35:32.652)
Yeah, that's incredible. I just enjoy that so much. And I think we see things the same way in so many aspects of travel. It's been a real pleasure to have you on the show and look forward to connecting with you again soon. So thanks so much for joining us.

Harish Shroff (35:49.23)
Thank you very much for having me. Thank you.

Brian Jewell (35:58.67)
Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Harish as much as I did, and I hope you took a lot away from it. I want to take a minute and share a few of the things that I took away from it because I think these are really helpful principles for anybody trying to grow a group travel business. And when I asked Harish about how tour businesses must change as they scale up, he said, as you scale, you also have to change and evolve.

Initially it's 80% passion and your systems are 20%. As you grow, your core value still remains the same, but it becomes like 20% of your foundation and your systems become 80% of your growth. So as you are growing, you really need to add more and more systems. I thought this is incredibly insightful for anybody who is in the position where their travel organization is growing. Well, that is an exciting position to be in, but

the ceiling on your growth, if you're not careful, may end up being the old systems that you built at the beginning of your travel enterprise. And that's not to say the systems were bad. The systems were probably exactly what you needed for that time. But as you grow, your systems must grow with you. In fact, what may become the challenge as you grow and scale up and build systems to support the scale you're working at.

The challenge may not be building the systems. The challenge may be preserving that core of passion and values. How do you communicate your corporate values? How do you communicate the vision of your business? How do you communicate and instill your passion for travel into the people that come on board and work for you? How do you incorporate it? How do you communicate it in your messaging to clients? How do you

incorporated in your marketing, those become the kinds of problems you need to solve at scale. But if you don't put the systems in place first, you probably are never going to get a chance to work at that level.

Brian Jewell (38:01.666)
Now, when Harish and I were talking about how he makes sure that every single tour departs full, he said you have to follow a certain rule. There's a theory called the rule of seven, which states your prospective customer will see or understand when they see a message for six or seven times. Again, really insightful rule. I've heard some marketing experts put the number of exposures to a brand much higher than six or seven.

the exposures necessary to get people to take action. So, you know, whether the number is six or seven or twelve or thirteen or more than that, what Harsh is putting his finger on is the fact that people need to encounter you and your message many, many, many times before they're ready to buy. So you can't fall for the idea that says, well, I asked them once or twice. I sent them a couple emails, I I mentioned it in a social post. All of those things are good.

But none of them are enough. They are necessary, but they are not sufficient. Really, really good tour marketing just requires a lot of touches. It requires a lot of exposure and a lot of time. So if you've been trying two or three or four touches and it's just not getting you the response you want, it may not be that you're doing anything wrong in your approach except for giving up too soon.

So I would encourage you to try Harish's method. Make sure people do see your brand, hear about your trip, get ideas about your travel experiences five, six, seven times before you make the hard push for the sale, because that might be the key to unlocking their understanding and their willingness to say yes. And finally, when I asked Harish about choosing the right marketing platforms, he said a lot of people think they have to be everywhere.

But that's not true. You cannot be on every single social media platform. You cannot just do cold email blast and hope that the booking will come in. On the contrary, you have to build your own community. He went on to say your vibe attracts your tribe. And the same formula applies to your clients. Know your client, know who they are, showcase them your product that suits them, rather than sending a normal

Brian Jewell (40:25.154)
General thing to everybody. Your vibe attracts your tribe. That might be the takeaway quote of the show for me. But the bigger point that Harish is making here is that trying to spread yourself too thin in your marketing strategy is actually counterproductive. If you know your travelers, and there's a good chance you do, and you know the kinds of things they enjoy, the kinds of destinations they're drawn to, the kinds of people they tend to attract, then really

Focus in on where those people are, what kind of messaging they respond to, and put those destinations in front of them and those activities in front of them that they know or that you know are going to resonate. And that is going to be a much more impactful use of your marketing efforts and marketing resources instead of trying to spread yourself super thin over the dozens of available marketing platforms in today's world. Great stuff there from Harish Strof.

Well, we talked earlier in the show about the FAA's plan to use artificial intelligence to solve problems in the national air travel network. And of course, more and more everybody is talking about AI in travel and how AI may impact or improve your travel business. And it got me to thinking about what today's small tour operators can and can't solve.

with AI implementation. And that is going to be the topic of today's Hot Minute.

Yeah, that's right. The hot minute is the portion of the show where I take 60 seconds to give you my unfiltered thoughts on an issue that impacts tourism every day. And today we're asking the question Can AI fix what's broken in your travel business? So let's put sixty seconds on the clock and get into it. I'm glad to hear that the FAA is developing AI tools to help alleviate flight delays before they begin.

Brian Jewell (42:30.188)
And I'm optimistic that there's a lot technology can do to help improve your business too. But there's one kind of problem AI can't solve. The leadership problems you create. In most small organizations, the biggest issue isn't a lack of passion or expertise. It's that the leaders unintentionally create challenges through their own blind spots and avoidance and shortcomings.

AI can't have the hard conversations you've been avoiding. It can't make your difficult business decisions. It can't build trust with your team, make you more self-aware, or solve your HR problems. You are always the ceiling on your organization's success. Your biggest problems are leadership problems. And it's up to you to do the hard work and tackle them yourself.

Well, that's the hot minute. That's the way I see things anyway. Of course, as always, you are welcome to disagree with me, and we can still be friends. And hey, whether you agree or disagree, we would love to hear from you. You can send your thoughts, questions, or the sand your head has been buried in to podcast at grouptraveleader.com. I read every email that comes into that account. I really do love hearing from you. And hey, you never know.

Your thoughts or ideas might just be the topic of the next hot minute. And while you're in the mood to give us some feedback, would you do me a big favor? Would you go to your favorite podcast playing app? And if you haven't already subscribed to the show, then do it while you're there. If you could also give us a rating and leave us a review, that would be a big help. And I'm so grateful to everyone who has done that so far. My thanks as well to Harris Schraf for joining me today.

On the next episode, we're going to have the return of Kelsey Toner of Guest Focus. He's going to come back and tell us all about how you can build an AI system for your tour company. This is a really fascinating conversation. I can't wait for you to hear it. Until then, though, remember this. At the end of the day, we're all on this trip together. So let's make it a good one. See you next time on Gather and Go.

Brian Jewell (44:53.506)
Gather and Go is hosted and executive produced by me, Brian Schule. Our publisher is Mac Lacey. Our creative team includes Dania Simmons, Ashley Ricks, and Rachel Crick. Our sales team is Talesa Reck and Ashley DiLuccia. To advertise on the podcast, call Talisa at 859-253-0455. Gather and Go is a production of the Group Travel Leader. For more information on our podcast, magazines, and events, visit us online at GroupTravelleader.com.