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Best Domestic Vacation is Alaska Cruises

Every time I turn around, someone is sending me a survey to complete on-line. Is that the same with you? As if I had all the time in the world. They always say that it will only take 10 minutes, but when I melt down and start one, I'm only halfway through in 10 minutes!! And I'm sure I'm not the only one who has the same experience. So, I'm always a little suspect when I read about survey results.

The one I'm referencing today is a legitimate, you can be trusted, survey. It was done by a consortium of travel agencies throughout the United States. In fact, Travel Leaders Group is the largest gathering of travel agencies in the world, employing more than 50,000 travel agents across North America. It just so happens that The Travel Factory, as well as the agency in the Mall, Travel Leaders, are members of this powerful group of travel sellers.

The Travel Factory was affiliated with an agency consortium called vacation.com for many years, but a little over a year ago, vacation.com became affiliated with the Travel Leaders Group. Also, just within the last week, a large tour operator that had been doing business for many years under the name of Apple Vacations also merged into the Travel Leaders Group. The “big” just got “BIGGER”!!!

This Travel Leaders Group recently conducted and completed their annual survey about the status of travel as experienced by this group. Guess what??? The number one most booked domestic vacation, for the first time, was Alaska cruises!! They edged out Orlando and Las Vegas which usually takes the number one spot. 

Taking the top spot for international travel was maintained by Caribbean cruises, and moving up one spot to take third place in the survey was European river cruises. Mediterranean cruises came in fourth. Cancun holds the number one spot for international travel. My hunch is that all those travel agents in the South got together and voted for Cancun.

The Travel Leaders Group's survey was conducted over two months from Dec. 20-Feb. 19. Surprisingly, on the other hand, based on my initial comment about taking a survey, maybe not so surprising, there were only 1,355 responses from North American-based travel agency owners, managers, and front-line agents. Obviously, not everyone who had the opportunity to take the survey took it. I remember when the initial opportunity came to take the survey here at The Travel Factory, I was busy, so I ignored it. Within a week or two, I received another invitation or two. Also, I received phone calls from cruise lines, tour operators, and other interested parties encouraging me to respond to the survey, and remember them when I did. Sometime after considerable additional encouragement, and a slow down in business, I did take the time to respond, so my vote was among those counted.

So.....almost everyone who responded voted much like me. We are having a good start for Alaska cruises. We are busy with Caribbean cruises. We do sell a lot of vacations to Cancun and the Mayan Riviera. It's refreshing to know that my Big Country friends are keeping up with the rest of America. You can help keep us beef up those survey numbers by coming by The Travel Factory at 4150 Southwest Drive, between Rosa's and Chick-Fil-A. The four travel agents here have great experience selling all those travel products.....even Disney!! Call at 698-1421 or 800-760-4040. Check out our web-site where we posted pictures of our Holy Land experience last month. Blessings on your weekend!!!