Terms

"It was vital that we had a means to allow our members to communicate with one another," Katalina begins. "Some individuals will refer to their"community," and use the term to refer to their Instagram follower base; it could be a dialogue between the creator and their fans however it's not an exchange between one participant with an additional. It was our intention to facilitate people talking with each other because that's community building fundamentally, is how individuals feel connected to one and feel connected to each other."

The ECT community wasn't limited to travelers to join the ECT community. Experts from the industry were joining and actively sharing their knowledge with others in their vicinity making a welcoming and knowledgeable community. Katalina and the ECT Team wanted formalize their contributions , and to show their gratitude for all the information and tips available.

"We tried to bring those experts, who are aware of what we value and are the El Caminos of these countries in order to become more involved in our group," Katalina starts. "We created badges for them and gave them profile photos featuring a blue circle on their profile picture, that has a checkmark in yellow. This is a way to show that they're experts in their field of. When you submit a query about Greece and Christina replies, you'll be aware that the person is an expert and was a minimum of 10 years in the country."

The members of the community have questions to solve, and genuine, experienced travel experts were talking to each other. The community online was fulfilling its purpose perfectly -- possibly even better than been thought of. After that, the goal was achieved: lockdowns were lifted. It was evident that the online ECT community was now moving back to an offline world. It was time for the organization to move into a state of survival and start to grow into the future. "During the pandemic  that we faced, we tried to test ourselves against fire and showed that we were resilient," Katalina explains.

The pandemic , as well as the resulting worldwide slowdown allowed to the ECT group to consider more on how they could best provide for its women travelers. "We thought we had made something truly special, but we didn't have the time or the room to reflect on the brand that we were creating. We saw how distinctive it was as a company that deals in travel," she continues. "As the world began to expand, we realized there was more that we could accomplish with membership on a daily basis. The community could be served by sharing what they were looking for from us, while they started to travel to the world."

Big ambition

What's El Camino Travel going to offer its customers with all the services they'll need when the world is about returning to its normal routine? "The major aim is to make it the best-known one-stop destination for female travelers who want to plan, dream to book as well as travel and be able to share their travel stories," Katalina asserts.

ECT started off with around 100 workers at the beginning of August. It is currently with 700 people. Its ECT team has grown to 6 and a half full-time staff. In the US women of the millennial generation are the fastest-growing group within the travel industry, but Katalina is of the opinion that no of the major operators are catering to the needs of this segment. "For certain of the larger firms, there's no one at the top of the executive table saying"hey, women have spent huge amounts of money, yet they're uncomfortable when they travel. What can we accomplish to better serve their needs?" she asks.

Katalina recalls that in a recent survey among women that travel, the thing most often, what they would like to receive from their travel agency in the majority (85 per cent) of the respondents was the feeling of security during travel. "These women do not want for security guards to be on their properties," Katalina says "They simply want to know that they've got the facts and sources to make informed decisions. This is what makes them feel secure and confident. We're working on this in the moment with our small-group excursions because they permit travelers to completely immerse themselves in the experience and not sacrifice the experience of travelling because of gender."

At the end of the day Katalina hopes El Camino Travel to become the top resource for women who travel. "TripAdvisor as well as Google concentrate on the quantity of data over quality. There's a wealth of bad high-quality data and we'd like to stand out as completely different," she continues. "It's about knowing there's a group of people who I can trust to the extent that it isn't possible to depend on any other person in my journey to discover this world."

Travel concierge

What is the best way to let your ability to draw on the community show up? Katalina tells me that at the moment someone post an issue on the ECT forum The community manager will jump into the discussion "with this concierge assistance" and will provide all information of threads that could already be in existence. In the next step, five other community members will be able to respond. "Rather then the usual 200 responses that you get through the Facebook community for free, there'll be better recommendations that are a reflection of the way we travel" she says. "People have to pay for El Camino because of the idea that"I'm the way I should be as a traveler. They are able to get me ahead of anyone else'. We're bringing these people together."

The question is: in order to keep the top standard of service, ECT perhaps have an upper limit on members? "We are asked every single time, 'How are you going to ensure high quality?'" Katalina responds by saying "Tech will be a major contributor in this, absolutely. The team is already reviewing data and looking into the possibilities." The team is trying to find ways to ensure that users aren't subjected to inferior quality content. The team manages the forum, and selects few topics to be answered by the forum, then they stop responding when a set number of replies have been received.

"At moment, the main benefit of joining is the fact that you will receive a carefully-crafted guide on travel every month. They are compiled by our expert experts in destinations. In the future, we may roll out more content that is well-curated since people trust us," she continues. "We are looking to make confident that we're able to accommodate more people as well as continue to provide the knowledge and connections people are looking for, without worrying about what happens as groups grow."

The author explains that many people who are ECT community members would like to stay in touch in particular when they travel and also have workgroups that are remote at the moment. "You'll get messages saying, 'Hey, who's currently in Mexico for the next few months? I'm remote working in Oaxaca!'" she explains. "We're investigating technology that will allow people to meet when they're going to different places at the same schedule."

Alongside the advancements in tech The main objective for ECT is to take on the post-lockdown market and start going again with selling travel. They began providing group travel trips in the month of June, 2021. Today, the main portion of their business is selling these trips, offering memberships, and combing these two services with discounts for the members.

Sharing is not selling.

We conclude that, counterintuitively it's the strategy that does not promote travel, but rather discussing the issue on the ECT forum. This could aid some of the ECT's travel experts to get the business. "The forum is an excellent opportunity for individuals to showcase their skills and expertise and a lot of participants in El Camino Travel's El Camino Travel community have gained customers through the responses to their questions," Kataliana explains.

Katalina quickly realized she had accomplished a great job and began looking for ways to increase and improve the expert list of the top experts in destination. "We talked to our present groupand asked them "Who do you believe should be considered an expert and who should be considered the expert?' and they suggested persons to us" she continues. "I planned to talk with them and inform them about the forum, in order to make them excited. It's a fresh distribution method that they are able to use free of any algorithmic issues from Facebook and Instagram in addition to giving an opportunity to sit with the perfect user."

The experts recognized clear benefits. "When you talk to potential travelers and travel, it's important to show your knowledge and demonstrate what makes someone want to decide to book a trip with you. Forums enable them to accomplish this in a authentic, natural manner that isn't slick or invasive," she says.

"Travel experts enjoy talking about travel. We enjoy sharing information. There's another opportunity to assist others," Katalina muses. Being useful is an excellent strategy to market travel. As the industry of travel is beginning to grow at a rapid rate, the ECT team has been able to take things a step above simply talking about traveling. "Since our lockdown has ended the team has begun planning travel along with our knowledgeable travel experts. Our trips have included to Morocco and to Guatemala and also traversing Greece and Georgia in Greece as well as Georgia. It was a blast!" She smiles.

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