Always one to challenge the status quo, travel industry veteran of four decades Trish Shepherd has launched Black Sheep Tourism.
The launch comes at a critical time for the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors, which have been impacted as never before by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Black Sheep Tourism has pledged to bring brands and business solutions together. Its products and services are designed to support the travel, tourism and hospitality industries.
News of its launch yesterday coincided with another positive sign for the future of tourism – a decision by the US to open up to vaccinated travellers from November.
Speaking yesterday, Trish Shepherd said Black Sheep would be a trusted partner in travel for businesses navigating the new Covid landscape.
“Now more than ever, businesses need to know their customers, be flexible, swift and equipped – to be ahead of the game,” she said.
“Black Sheep is built on offering better solutions across tourism, travel and hospitality by doing things differently.
“The biggest asset to any company is its client database. Companies that collect their client data, can segment their customers and provide personalised targeted marketing. They send the right message, to the right clients, at the right time, in the right way.
“As we recover from Covid, the funds supporting the big marketing campaigns will not be there. Black Sheep works with global brands and our company provides local solutions.
“The team at Black Sheep is committed to supporting the travel, tourism and hospitality industry in managing their data more efficiently and nurturing customer relationships. Regardless of what format your information is in – be it PDF, excel or specialist systems, your data will be returned to you clean, merged, analysed and segmented ready for you to hit the ground running.”
As Shepherd put it: “We know what works because we’ve been working in travel for decades, and I know one of the tough parts of travel is identifying that point of difference that sets you apart from everyone else. We are delighted to launch our products and services, which have been purposely designed to suit the specific needs of our complex industry.”
Shepherd’s career has involved high-level travel management, including as senior vice president and general manager with Ensemble Travel Group and before that as American Express regional director franchise and alliances.
Managing director of Black Sheep Tourism, Trish Shepherd
“I’ve always loved being a black sheep, managed things differently and I want to help businesses stand out,” she said yesterday. “We look at travel from every angle to understand what both suppliers and the travel consumer now want the most.”
Black Sheep’s suite of services includes client database management, social media, travel marketing and specialist representation.
“We support travel, differently,” Shepherd declared.
Describing the development of Black Sheep Tourism to Global Travel Media yesterday, Shepherd said: “I’ve worked hard on this for 18 months and I’m a strong believer that those who can differentiate their message will lead the way.
“When lockdown started in March last year, I decided to use the time to work on a subject that has greatly frustrated me for a couple of decades since my Amex days and is still in existence today.
“It’s about customer communications.”
Shepherd said this consisted of:
- sending the right message,
- to the right people
- at the right time
- in the right way.”
Data is the power behind all of that customisation, she added.
“I’m not talking about a CRM with client’s email addresses in it, as that is not a database. I’m talking about a fully integrated customer data platform which pulls transactional, demographical and geographical all into one cleansed report providing actionable insights about your customers.”
Shepherd found a company which had specialised in hospitality data for 40 years. Together they have built TravelSync, an interactive dashboard that allows users to read years of data easily. To learn more about that, see here.
Written by Peter Needham
