selling weekend breaks

[smokeyone]

I would appreciate any advice on selling nostalgic weekend breaks in europe.
I already organise several group tours abroad each year for a niche market
with a loyal client base. My trips are expensive but are good value.
The weekend breaks would seem expensive as well but would be inclusive of four star hotel, meals, excursions etc. My existing client base would probably produce some bookings for the weekend breaks but not enough to be viable.
Not official market research but as my existing clients are mostly retired and have two, three, four or more holidays a year I would guess they are the "B" sector which would probably also apply to my weekends as well.
Where do I start ! Thank you for any thoughts.

[mgoess]

Hi Smokey

Do you have a website? In the modern day an effective internet marketing strategy would have a high impact to your enquiries. I don't know how good your knowledge is on this so I will start with an overview and if you have any questions just let me know.

So a good start is with a website that is clear to navigate and brings across the right message, being that you provide high quality holidays and weekend breaks, with a high quality service etc.

The second stage is then driving high quality traffic to your site. The 2 main techniques being Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Please note that i'm talking about 'high quality traffic'. That is not people searching the word 'holiday france'. Im talking about more specific searches like 'luxury holiday france'. The more specific the search term the more likely it is that you can supply them with what they are looking for.

It sounds like you have an email list which needs to be taken advantage of. So Email marketing is another channel you can use to target your consumers. There are some powerful email packages that allow you to segment your contact list and send targeted emails. Something that could work really well for this is including a 'forward to a friend ' link/button in the emails. This is a great viral marketing strategy that would help you grow your contact list. The key here again is to have clear emails with strong contact that will lead the recipient to your website.

So, thats a bit of an overview, but if you have any questions just let me know,

Markus

[smokeyone]

Thank you very much for your input. I do appreciate it. No e-mail list to speak of, my existing clients do not e-mail very much and in fact some prefer to write rather than telephone. The Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) sounds interesting. Assuming the web site is built correctly etc etc then would PPC or SEO produce results. That's the difficult part I assume. Setting up the weekend breaks would take time and money
and we are not looking at every weekend, just two, three or four a year.
50 people on a weekend would be nice but lets say 30 people times three weekends.
Looking for say 100 customers. Do I also assume that's small fry in web holiday terms... There are various logistical reasons why only a few weekends a year and only upto 50 on a trip but the smaller numbers also mean they receive a better service while away.