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How to Grow Your Group

4. Host travel parties.

One of the best ways to expose new travelers to your travel group is to invite them to events to publicize and build excitement for upcoming adventures.

Preview parties are a great way to promote an upcoming trip and to test the waters. If a preview party isn’t well attended, chances are the trip won’t sell well. And parties give you a chance to start building camaraderie in your group and introduce potential new travelers to the dynamics and fun of group travel.

Similarly, hosting wrap-up and photo-sharing parties after a tour is a great way to keep the excitement of a trip alive. It’s also a good time to announce your upcoming trips and begin marketing to people who are flush with pleasant memories from the trip they just took.

5. Rebrand your image.

People’s perceptions of your travel program and the trips you take may be the biggest factor in their holding back from joining your group.

Potential travelers may perceive your trips as too cheap, too expensive, too long, too short, too busy or too boring. So take a hard look at your itineraries, photos and other materials to make sure they’re not sending a message you don’t intend.

If your group members are perceived as being too old, try to attract some younger travelers to your trips and assure them they will have an enjoyable time. Part of this will require creating a simple website and Facebook page and keeping those fresh and updated.

6. Travel near and far.

If you are locked in to doing specific kinds of trips — only day trips, only mystery tours, only international trips — you’re missing out on a host of travelers who aren’t interested in those kinds of experiences.

Try adding one or two trips a year that differ from your norm, and see if they attract different travelers. Don’t rule out certain destinations just because they require flying, overnight stays or higher-than-normal prices.

If you can offer fantastic experiences over a range of tour types, you might convince your travelers to try a new type of trip they wouldn’t have thought attractive.

Brian Jewell

Brian Jewell is the executive editor of The Group Travel Leader. In more than a decade of travel journalism he has visited 48 states and 25 foreign countries.