WHO ARE WE

Robert Dee Associates offers sales representation, consultancy services, ambassador services, and staff training provision in the leisure travel market segment.

With over 30 years in the travel industry, working at the highest level in global purchasing and sales, our experience spans EMEA, North and South America, Australasia, Japan and South East Asia. Our extensive database of contacts includes tour operators, wholesalers, DMCs, tourist boards, airlines, hotels, travel agent consortia, media partners and trade associations.

Sales Representation

We represent your product to the global travel trade, according to your needs.

Please see some examples of our service opposite.

Happy Tours - Inbound DMC for Europe

We represent this fast growing, Slovenian owned, DMC in English speaking markets (UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) bringing their product to the attention of tour operators and travel planners. We are successfully generating tour series and ad hoc group business from all source markets, and positioning Happy Tours as the sustainable travel choice for European group tours.

Lyra Hotel Plitvice - 4 star hotel in Plitvice Lakes area of Croatia.

We have been involved in this project from pre-opening, defining the pricing, revenue and sales strategy over 3 years, and representing the hotel in international markets. Our marketing has established the hotel as the premier ethical and sustainable tourism project in the region, helping it to win high profile group business from worldwide markets.

ETOA

The European Tourism Association used our services to recruit tour operators and wholesalers for one of their showcase events, City Fair, in 2018.

Green and Outdoor Tourism

We successfully recruited adventure tour operators from the UK and Ireland for this green tourism travel fair in Bohinj, Slovenia, in 2019

Consultancy Services

Please see some examples of our service opposite.

Obonjan Island

This Croatian island was bought by investors to be developed as a glamping ‘festival style’ resort with a yoga offering, pitched at Millennials and Generation Z consumers. We brought our expertise to year two of operation, 6 weeks before opening for the season, when the resort had an occupancy of 24%. Our review of their revenue management, booking systems, and online presence resulted in occupancy increasing to 80%.

Malmaison / Hotel du Vin

When this leading UK hotel group recruited a leisure sales manager to actively pursue the leisure segment we were called on to give advice and direction, and assist in writing their first leisure sales business plan.

Lyra Hotel Plitvice

We have been involved in this project from pre-opening, defining the pricing, revenue and sales strategy over 3 years, and representing the hotel in international markets. Our marketing has established the hotel as the premier ethical and sustainable tourism project in the region, helping it to win high profile group business from worldwide markets. We have also arranged fam visits from the travel trade and travel media, resulting in coverage in national newspapers with high PR value.

Travel The Unkown

This niche UK based tour operator, specialising in off the beaten track destinations, were looking for ways to expand sales beyond B2C, via the internet and word of mouth. We developed a strategic plan for them which resulted in commercial agreements with several leading travel agency consortia in the UK and Ireland. We were successful in launching them in Ireland with a marketing strategy including PR opportunities (newspaper, travel trade press and national radio), membership of relevant trade associations, and attendance at trade fairs and events, resulting in their first bookings from the travel trade in this market.

Ambassador Services

With our vast database of contacts, we can introduce your product to the people who need to see and understand it.

Please see some examples of our service opposite.

Visualizer

This Finnish based company provides hotels and meeting venues with an innovative way of selling their meeting space through imaginative and user friendly ways of utilising their visual material. We have introduced them to several hotel chains in the UK and Ireland and as a result, their product is now being used by hotels from Glasgow in the north to Plymouth in the South, and many places in between. Our work with them is ongoing so please ask us for an introduction to their sales team.

Rategain

Our most recent ambassadorial role is introducing Rategain to the UK and Ireland hotel chains. Rategain has many products ranging from hotel shopping to social media management, and we are proud to be representing them. Please ask us for more information and relevant contacts.

Staff Training

We can provide bespoke training for staff in areas including:

Negotiation skills
Selling skills
Team building
Working in teams

Please see some examples of our service opposite.

University of Surrey

Delivery of a very successful One Day Sales Skills course to the students on the undergraduate degree in Tourism.

Happy Tours

In 2018 delivered ‘Negotiation Skills ‘training for Happy Tours’ senior staff as part of their annual Happy Tours Academy. This was followed in 2019 by ‘Building Effective Teams’.

GALLERY

TESTIMONIALS

“I have known Robert for 10 or so years since we joined ETOA, where he was also our Chairman, but it was only two years ago that I asked him to help us with planning our price strategy for the hotel we were about to open. One thing led to another almost naturally and here we are two years later when he’s not only designing what we asked for but has done so much more. He has helped us in enhancing the potential of our project immensely by pronouncing the valuables that were hidden in it, but needed to be dug out and presented properly.

We opened the Hotel Lyra in May 2019 and, thanks in large part to Robert, the hotel was immediately sold out. Based on this successful partnership we moved on and now Robert is Happy Tours’s Global Sales Consultant and is very effective in this role, too.”

Sašo Krumpak, CEO and Founder, Happy Tours

“Robert worked with us to increase our profile in the UK and Ireland. He took the time to understand our business, its strengths and what we wanted to achieve in terms of trade development. Using his travel trade connections and contracting knowledge, we were able to finalise trade agreements with the leading travel agency consortia in both countries and build relationships with new partners helping us to reach new customers. Robert devised a very cost effective marketing plan to launch us in Ireland, including national media coverage at B2C and B2B level, membership of the leading trade associations, attendance at travel trade events and introductions to the leading players in the market.”

David McGuinness, Director of Travel The Unknown

PARTNERS

Robert Dee Associates is a partner of New Deal Europe.

New Deal Europe is organising a one day B2B travel workshop and conference in London in March 2020 focused on developing areas of Europe, particularly the Balkan region.

Robert Dee Associates is a member of:

Contact

For more information or to see how we can help your business grow within the leisure market segment please contact us:

Robert Dee Associates

Tel: + 44 7512 542995