Magnolia Market is a Tourism Sensation in Waco

  • Fran Stephenson
  • October 26, 2016
  • 5 min read

What is Texas’ hottest and hippest destination right now?  It’s a couple of upcycled grain silos a mile off Interstate 35 in Waco called Magnolia Market and it’s a home decorators dream. It’s the brainwave of Chip and Joanna Gaines, the HGTV celebs from Fixer Upper.  I’ve personally enjoyed the show from my home in […]

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What to Know BEFORE you Book through a Vacation Rental Company

  • Fran Stephenson
  • May 25, 2016
  • 4 min read

  Like many travelers, I’ve experimented with the new vacation rental sites like VRBO and Home Away. These sites allow you to rent a vacation home or apartment using filters like location, features and price. They are becoming formidable alternatives to hotel bookings. I’ve stayed in a wide variety of with varying success. Here’s what you need […]

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Theme Parks Introduce Demand Pricing

  • Fran Stephenson
  • March 24, 2016
  • 3 min read

The Walt Disney Company announced a move last month to adopt demand pricing at their U.S. theme parks, a first for attractions. Demand pricing, also called surge pricing, is a methodology in which prices fluctuate based on perceived or actual demand for a product or service. It has been used by the airline and hotel industry for […]

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Survive Your Holiday Trip with These Tips

  • Fran Stephenson
  • December 10, 2014
  • 5 min read

Thanksgiving was a warm-up to the big Christmas trip for many travelers.  With the peak travel period just weeks away, it’s time to look for some serious coping skills for the trip. Traveling this time of year is stressful.  More than 46 million Americans traveled for the Thanksgiving holiday this year according to AAA. Based on […]

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Packing Your Suitcase – Video Advice

  • Fran Stephenson
  • December 6, 2014
  • 1 min read

Here are 5 Resources for packing for your next trip. Check them out! This video from Real Simple is focused on packing womens’ clothes. This packing video from Holiday Inn Express is perfect for business travelers — with a really unusual way of folding shirts with collars. This is not really a video, but it’s […]

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Stitch Together Information for Your Visitors

  • Fran Stephenson
  • November 12, 2014
  • 5 min read

I pride myself on being a pretty good planner, especially when it comes to trips.  I also think I’m pretty good at online research, but a recent getaway with my family in Tennessee showed me (and now my clients!) just how important the little details are to travelers who are putting their faith into what […]

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Taking a Fall Vacation? Take My Advice

  • Fran Stephenson
  • November 5, 2014
  • 3 min read

This time of year is considered off-season by the travel industry, and for many, the lure of lighter crowds makes a fall getaway very appealing. But if you’re thinking about taking a vacation in fall or spring, the travel industry’s “shoulder periods,” you should be prepared for a different experience. Here’s what I found on […]

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Round Up: Best Travel Advice for the Holidays

  • Fran Stephenson
  • November 21, 2013
  • 2 min read

It’s that time of the year when families pack up everything they own and head out for the holidays. Earlier today, AAA released their holiday travel forecast and the news is good: travel is down this year, so ONLY 43 million people are going to hit the road next week.  Since you’ve been so busy […]

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Retail Fails but Travel Wins: 3 Stories about Customer Experience

  • Fran Stephenson
  • October 6, 2013
  • 4 min read

Are your customers having good, bad or GREAT experiences? I recently had 3 different service experiences in each of these categories which really surprised me, and not always in a good way.  Let’s start with the bad surprise. Retail Fail When trying to make a purchase at a large department store, I found that the […]

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Marketing Plans: Dust Collector or Useful Tools?

  • Fran Stephenson
  • September 30, 2013
  • 4 min read

Last week, I facilitated a session by the same name at the Texas Travel Industry Summit in Corpus Christi.  It was a “shirtsleeves” session designed to help travel professionals talk about their successes and challenges and draw from the collective group to find solutions or ideas they could take back to their organizations. Our panel […]

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