Leaving the Corporate World
Albing’s new position at Dartmouth dovetailed well with her personal love of travel. She traveled extensively for business with trips to India, Japan and China, and took numerous family trips with her husband and three children all over the world. Together, they explored Tanzania, China, Europe and North America.
“Working here has been very fun,” said Albing. “I love being back on campus. It is wonderful to constantly learn something new every day.”
Part of Albing’s job responsibilities includes managing Lifelong Learning. The educational program takes Dartmouth alumni on the road for educational opportunities, such as blockbuster museum exhibits or alumni meet-and-greets.
“We want alumni to never stop turning to Dartmouth for their education,” she said.
Albing also keeps the focus on Dartmouth through tours themed around the college’s educational strengths. To celebrate the college’s 250th anniversary in 2019, the travel program will offer trips based on famed explorer John Ledyard, who once attended the college.
Business Approach
When Albing started at Dartmouth, she soon saw ways to apply business principles to help select travel destinations.
“I approached it from a portfolio basis,” she said. “The portfolio measures the tried-and-true trips. Those are the trips we offer regularly. That allows us to tweak and try new things with 25 percent of the trips. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t, but it gives us a chance to reach alumni that might not otherwise be engaged with the college.”
To choose destinations, Albing relies on constant surveys and meetings with alumni employees where the group spitballs ideas. Many crowd-pleasing trips have come from these meetings. However, some of the failures taught Albing valuable lessons she could apply to future trips.
“I thought a family trip tied to ‘Frozen’ would work,” said Albing. “But it was priced too high, so it didn’t work. It was worth trying because, maybe next time, we’ll do it as a better price point and it will work.”
Albing selects many of these trial-run destinations in hopes of reaching younger travelers than the typical retired alumni travelers. To convince this demographic to join a group trip, Albing borrows from her business knowledge.
“We use market segmentation, so we know which audience will be the most receptive to which tour,” said Albing. “We use different images, wording and campaigns that appeal to each generation. For example, we run short email campaigns on our family trips right after the holidays. We find that is the best time to advertise family trips.”
Albing also tested and surveyed responses to various types of Dartmouth Alumni Travel ads in the college’s alumni magazine before homing in on specific wording and images.
“We found that the ads were selling the concept of Dartmouth Alumni Travel rather than particular trips, so most of the advertising we have in the magazine is image advertising,” said Albing.
