The advisors who struggle are usually selling a service: tell me where you want to go, and I'll build something. The advisors who scale sell a product: here is the trip, here is the date, here is the button. Productizing is the shift, itinerary pages live on your site, next year's departure dates set and bookable, sometimes two years out if you want to be aggressive.
“When they go to the website and the trip says waitlist, people want what they can't have.”
But hotels won't quote me that far out
- Price the hotel component with a 20% buffer and set the trip price to cover it, you're trading a little margin certainty for a year of extra selling time.
- Or advertise the hotel tier without naming the property, keeping room to swap. And if you must swap a promised hotel, offer the choice plus the difference, transparency policy beats apology email.
- At eleven months out, real pricing firms up. Confirm everything then.
Claire's own numbers
The framework, step by step
- 1
Price the hotel component with a 20% buffer and set
- 2
Or advertise the hotel tier without naming the property
keeping room to swap. And if you must swap a promised hotel, offer the choice plus the difference — transparency policy beats apology email.
- 3
At eleven months out
real pricing firms up. Confirm everything then.
Claire's own framework from this essay, in the order she teaches it.
Source: Claire B. Soares, from her own travel business and live trainings.
The waitlist effect
Between launches, my trips don't disappear, they switch to "waitlist." People want what they can't have; clients literally email asking when booking reopens. A closed product creates the demand that an always-open one never does.
And once trips are products, a second market opens: other travel companies. Your proven itinerary, sold to their audience at a flat package price with your markup inside, no itemization, ever. One product, two revenue streams, zero extra trips to build.
Common Questions
What does it mean to productize a travel business?
Publishing itinerary pages with set departure dates that clients can book, rather than building something bespoke each time someone inquires. Products sell year-round; services only sell when asked.
How do you price a trip before hotels release rates?
Add roughly a twenty percent buffer to the hotel component and set the trip price to cover it, or advertise the hotel tier without naming the property so you keep room to swap.
Why put a sold-out trip on a waitlist?
Because a closed product creates demand an always-open one never does. Clients email asking when booking reopens, which tells you exactly how the next launch will perform.
Written By
Claire B. Soares
6× Condé Nast Top Travel Specialist, Certified AI Consultant, and founder of Travel AI University. $3.4B+ in enterprise travel software sold to Google, IBM, Boeing, the federal government, and the DoD; $16M+ in luxury travel sales with Up in the Air Life.
About Claire
