Terms

"It was crucial that we had a means that our community could connect with each other," Katalina begins. "Some users will use the term'my community' and mean their Instagram follower base; it could be a two-way conversation between the creator and their audience, but it's not conversations between one member with an additional. We wanted to make it easier for members talking to each other because that's community-building fundamentally, it's what makes people feel connected with the other."

It wasn't just travel enthusiasts who were being part of this ECT community. Industry experts were also joining and were actively sharing information with other members, creating an open and well-informed platform. Katalina as well as members of the ECT group wanted to formalize the contributions of these experts to show their gratitude for all the free information that was available for sharing.

"We wanted to get those experts, who understand our beliefs and who are basically the El Caminos of these nations, to be more active within our group," Katalina starts. "We made badges for them and also gave them profiles with a blue circle around their picture and a yellow check mark, as verification to show they are destination experts. When you submit a query regarding Greece and Christina responds, you'll know she is an expert that has spent a decade or more in Greece."

Members of the community asked questions as well as genuine, certified travel experts were talking to each other. This online community served the purpose it was intended to serve maybe even more than what had been expected. Then, the miracle occurred: the lockdowns were removed. Online ECT community had begun now returning to the offline realm, and it was the right time for the business to shift into a state of survival and begin building to the future. "During the pandemic we tested ourselves against fire, and proved resilient," Katalina explains.

The pandemic and its resulting worldwide slowdown allowed for the ECT group to consider thinking more about the best way to help its female travellers. "We knew we were doing something special, but we never had enough time or the space to really think about the company we had built. We realized just how unique it is, as a travel company generally," she continues. "As the world started to become more open, we realized there was more we could be doing by involving our members in the real world. The community could be served by expressing the things they wanted from us, as they began to explore into the world."

Big ambition

How is El Camino Travel going to give its customers everything they require now that travel is just about getting back to routine? "The major goal is to be the leading single-stop destination for women to think, plan to book, travel, and then share their travel experiences," Katalina asserts.

ECT was founded with 100 people in the month of August and is now at about 700. The ECT team has grown to 6 and a half full-time employees. The US the millennial females are the fastest-growing segment within the travel industry, but Katalina is of the opinion that none of the big operators are providing services to this group. "For certain of the larger firms, there's no one sitting in the boardroom telling them, 'Hey, women spend lots of money, but they're still feeling very unsafe on the road. What are we able to do to more effectively serve them?" She adds.

Katalina recounts that, in a recent survey of 5000 female travelers most frequently that travel businesses are requesting from most (85 percent) of respondents, is just to be safe when travelling. "These women are not asking for bodyguards," Katalina affirms "They simply want to know that they have the intel, resources and the connections for making informed choices. This is what helps them feel empowered and feel safe. We're solving this in the present with our small-group travel experiences, as they enable travelers to fully immerse themselves without having to compromise the overall quality of their trip experience because of their gender."

Ultimately, Katalina wants El Camino Travel to become the top source for women travelers. "TripAdvisor as well as Google are focused on the quantity of information versus quality: there's many poor-quality data available and we'd like to be the completely different," she continues. "It's about knowing there's an online community that I can lean on in a way that I can't lean on any other community in my journey to discover the world."

Travel concierge

How does the ability to lean on a community manifest itself? Katalina says that whenever someone asks a question on the ECT forum The community manager steps in "with this concierge service" and provides all links to threads that might already be in existence. Then, up to five other users of the community will reply. "Rather than getting the usual 200 replies you would get in an unpaid Facebook group There will be more relevant recommendations that reflect our style of travel," she says. "People pay for El Camino as they believe, 'That's who I am as a traveler. They have me covered better than everyone other'. The goal is to bring people together."

The question is: in order to maintain the high quality of service, ECT has maybe an upper limit of number of members? "We are asked every time: 'How you going to ensure that you keep the high quality and maintain the quality?'" Katalina responds, adding "Tech is going to play a role in that certainly. We've already begun monitoring data and evaluating our options." She adds the team is currently looking at solutions so that people aren't bombarded with low data. The team is already moderating the forum and picks a few topics to be answered, and stop the replies after the number of responses is a set amount.

"At present, one advantage of joining is that you get an extremely well-curated guide to travel every month. It's composed by our experts in destination, so maybe we'll put up more content that is curated, as people are able to believe in the company," she continues. "We want to make sure that we can handle increasing numbers of people, and can still provide the content as well as the connections people are looking for without feeling like what happens when the number of people join."

The author explains that the majority of the ECT group members would like to get in touch with one another particularly when traveling and a lot of them work remotely at the moment. "You'll see messages like"Hello, are you in Mexico for the next few months? I'm on the road working remotely from Oaxaca and I'm looking forward to seeing you!'" she explains. "We're researching technology that will make it easier for people to meet whenever they're travelling to locations that are similar to the same time."

Alongside the advancements in tech, the big plan of ECT is to seize the post-lockdown culture and start selling travel trips once more. It began offering group-travel excursions in June of 2021. the main part of their business is selling these trips, providing memberships and bundling the two together and offering members discounts.

Sharing is not selling.

We conclude that, counterintuitively, the approach of not selling travel -- but simply talking about it on the ECT forum -- is ultimately helping some of ECT's travel experts in gaining clients. "The forum is a great way for people to demonstrate thought leadership and expertise as well as a large portion of those in the El Camino Travel community have actually acquired clients through their responses to questions," Kataliana explains.

Katalina quickly realized they was a great concept and sought ways to increase and improve the expert list of destination experts. "We asked our current team, 'Who do you consider the expert?' And they began recommending individuals," she continues. "I interviewed them and tell them about the forum, I would make them feel excited. It's a fresh distribution method for them, free of any algorithmic hurdles that are used by Facebook and Instagram as well as giving the opportunity to be in front of their ideal audience."

They recognized the obvious advantages. "When you talk to potential travel clients, you have showcase your experience in demonstrating what makes someone want to decide to book a trip with you. Forums allow them to show their expertise in an natural, genuine way which doesn't come off as salesy," she says.

"Travel experts are passionate about discussing travel. We love to share information. This gives us another opportunity to just be really helpful," Katalina muses. It's clear that simply being helpful is a great method to promote travel. since the industry has started to grow and our ECT team has had the opportunity to do more beyond simply speaking about travel. "Since the lockdown was lifted, we've started planning trips with our destination experts. We've been to Morocco and to Guatemala and in Greece as well as Georgia. It's been quite cool!" she smiles.