"For Jeanne, the flexibility and the 'can-do' attitude of the management team at Passport has allowed her to get creative and make things happen."

Case Study Overview

Primary product used

www.CorpVacations.comwww.TravelinkOnline.com

Jeanne Colombo, DSDirector of MarketingTRAVELINK, An American ExpressTravel Representative

(201) 828-9536

jcolombo@TRVLNK.COMAffiliation: American Express Representative Network

Jeanne Colombo, Director of Marketing for Travelink, an American Express Travel Representative, has conditioned her customers to look for something special from her, something they cannot find anywhere else. In 2007 she is on target to generate more than $28M in vacation travel sales through just one of her company's vacation divisions. And though it is her agents who actually take the calls, answer the emails and close the sales,it is the images her customers see on her website and in her electronic newsletters that starts the dialog.

That content is customized, prioritized and certain to highlight the products she wants to sell and the products her customers said they wanted to see.

All of that is possible because of the quiet creativity and simple steps she takes to utilize Passport Online's technology and VacationPort content.

"Before Passport Online was an integral part of my business, I had to manually input all these special offers from my supplier partners on to my website through a software program with limited functionality, making the whole process extremely tedious. This resulted in our website having a very limited amount of unique offers because that is all I had the time to do, and it did not reflect the excitement and robust amount of travel experiences that our Agency had to offer.

Enter Passport Online… "What Passport allowed me to do was put up any offers I wanted, and have access to all of the offers Passport was able to provide

directly then filter them so that only my preferreds are pulled. And, their tools are such that it is really easy for me to build my own offers. From a visual standpoint, they have a photo library and they also allow me to use images from my suppliers so everything has a more professional look and is much more enticing. Essentially, I decide what I want to promote, and then Passport Online makes it look beautiful without me having to be a master at HTML. All I need is a few basic skills and the system lets me create an offer that is very appealing to my customers."

For Jeanne, the flexibility and the "can-do" attitude of the management team at Passport has allowed her to get creative and make things happen.

"Passport has a wonderful product, and they are not rigid. They take the time to really get to understand your company and your needs. Every company culture is different. They will go into a company and say, what do you need? What are your specific needs? Then they work with you to use their product to best meet those needs.

For our agency, we strictly adhere to the U.S. Department of Transportation guidelines. One of these requirements is that the Ships' Registration had to be on every cruise offer in the entire system. They then just went in and made that so simple and input this Registry information everywhere it needed to be with no work on my end. No hassle, just done. That is an example of the value-added part of this business relationship.

Travel Agency ConsumerGateway

to the

Travel Agency ConsumerGateway

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"She receives an average of 20-50 Trip Requests a day."

9786 SW Nimbus AvenueBeaverton OR 97008

Passport Online Phone: 503-626-7766Fax: 503-626-8676Web: www.passportonlineinc.com

For their Corporate Vacations division, the electronic newsletters that go out to customers are seen by almost two million viewers within various corporations. These newsletters are built with content Jeanne dictates through the Passport Online system.

"I only have a tiny bit of space on the newsletter so I need to be very selective and very targeted. On my website I have much more flexibility in terms of space. So when customers click an offer on the newsletter it brings them right to my website for a more expanded and detailed offer version. Passport allows me to be very creative in what I do and it is really easy to link to from various electronic mediums that we use in our business.

The reporting capabilities of the Passport system are extremely important to Jeanne's business. As a manager, she needs to know just how effective an offer has been so she can go back to a supplier and tell them what worked and what didn't. And the Trip Request functionality of the Passport system is what truly starts her customer dialog. In fact, she has a team of agents whose only job is to answer the requests that come through the CorpVacations.com website. "The content that the Traveler fills in on the request form tells us if they want to be contacted by phone or email. It contains a link to the offer they were viewing and allows the Traveler to tell us something specific about what they want to do or certain needs they may have. These Trip Requests are hot leads. The customers have already been qualified and it allows the salesperson to really be prepared to meet these customer needs directly."

Every Trip Request also crosses Jeanne's desk so she knows what activity is going on. She receives an average of 20-50 a day. Jeanne keeps adding new features to her website. She keeps innovating and finding ways to really customize her messaging so her customers feel special and really feel like her agency is anticipating their needs.

"My website is totally unique to my company and to my customers. These exclusive and special offers I provide are why they should not go to other on-line sites or anywhere else for their travel needs."

And though her business has grown significantly, she truly believes any agency can differentiate themselves by just getting this VacationPort Promotion Publisher tool and adding a bit of creativity.

"With VacationPort, you don't have to be a webmaster. If you just want to put something up there, just figure out what you want to highlight. They will give you a professional look for a little amount of work. With a little savvy, this product allows you to use a host of tools in a variety of ways."

And beyond customer marketing opportunities and lead generation, for Jeanne this product is also a revenue generator of its own.

She finds ways to customize a bit of storefront space on her website and she sells it to a preferred supplier for a quarter at a time.

She has also created a section of her website for gift certificates. This year, she will sell $4-$5 million in gifts of

travel. These are only redeemable through her agency and she uses Passport to highlight more high-end suppliers and to upsell clients who are using these gifts.

And if you need to hit a certain override threshold or top a certain productivity level with a supplier, Passport can help achieve those goals. "Are you maximizing suppliers? How are you managing overrides, are you reaching your niche markets?" Passport allows you to set the suppliers you choose to come up first in any search, helping to guide the customers and the agents to directionally sell and achieve financial targets.

And some of her corporation customers want their own dedicated websites. She buys a separate site from Passport and charges the client for a customized site. Many of her corporate clients have taken advantage of this capability already. These can then be populated with the corporate rates and deals that are only appropriate to that customer and that company.

"And if you need to hit a certain override threshold or top a certain productivity level with a supplier, Passport can help achieve those goals."