WhatsApp for travel agencies: qualify before you quote, price from packages with a validity date, and run the booking in the thread

The Sunday-evening enquiry

Travellers plan on weekends and message four agencies in the same hour. By Monday morning three of them have replied with a PDF; the fourth replied on Sunday with the consultant's name and three questions — travel dates, how many travellers, a rough budget per person — and is the one still in the conversation. The first reply does not have to be a quote. It has to be a person, and a question.

Qualify before you quote

1. Travel dates, and how fixed. Everything prices off them.
2. Travellers, and children's ages. Rooms, fares, visas.
3. Budget per person, all-in. The question agencies avoid and the one that saves the redone quote.
4. Flights included or land only. Half the price, half the risk.
5. Hotel category, visa status, special requests. The details that make the itinerary theirs.

Two questions per message, in the traveller's language, written onto the enquiry as they answer. A rule blocks the quote until dates, travellers and budget are known. The qualifying guide has the general method.

The quote

Price per person in the text, the inclusions in one clause (flights, 4-star, breakfast, transfers), the day-by-day itinerary attached, and a validity date — because airfares and hotel rates move, and a quote with no expiry is a promise you will have to break. The price comes from your package list; a custom trip goes to a consultant with the brief already captured, which is the part that used to take three messages. A quote is a utility template when sent after the window closes, because the traveller asked for it.

Booking, documents, departure

• The deposit, requested in the chat at the package price — UPI or card inside WhatsApp where the number has a payment configuration, a Razorpay link otherwise. The booking confirms from the payment, with the reference, the amount received, the balance and its due date in one message.
• Documents, once: every passport and form the booking needs, with a date and why the date matters ("fares are held only until then"). The photos land in the thread beside the booking.
• The balance, reminded seven days out with a link.
• Departure details, two days before: flight, terminal, check-in time, the driver's name and number, every voucher attached. One message the night they pack.

After the trip, and next year

Two days after return, one question: how was it? A reply in the thread is worth more than a review link, and a complaint found this way is one you can fix. Months later, one idea for the dates they mentioned — Diwali, the school holidays — to that one traveller, once, with a STOP line. Never a seasonal brochure to the whole list; that is how a number's quality rating falls and the messaging limit with it.