Learn how the Inbound International Travel Association transitioned to self management and improved member communication with Glue Up.
The International Inbound Travel Association is a trade association for US-based tour operators that plan business and leisure travel for international visitors to the United States. The association was founded in 1991 and was initially a small organization. Over the years, the association has grown nationwide and is now consists of about 200 companies. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international travel, the association’s operations came to a standstill for a period of time. Despite this reality, the organization has kept the community together with the help of Glue Up.
Giving an account of the association’s resilience amidst uncertainty was Lisa Simon, the Executive Director of the International Inbound Travel Association. Lisa hopes that with the positive signs of the travel industry opening up again in the coming months, the association will gain new members and recover those that were adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Becoming Self-Managed with Glue Up
Before discovering Glue Up, we were on a platform known as NetForum with a management company that managed our association. At the time, we resolved to become a self-managed organization and decided not to renew our contract with the management firm. After coming to this decision, we started looking for a membership management system as we only took our data with us after moving away from the management company.
As we were a small organization, affordability was a top consideration. We were also looking for a system that was flexible as our association grew. We began the search for membership management software soon after we decided to become self-managed, and we were in a hurry to move our data onto a new platform. This is why we were happy to find Glue Up, which was Eventbank at the time, so quickly during our search process. Glue Up was at the forefront of the providers we found because it seemed to have all the capabilities we needed and was also within our budget.
Why Glue Up?
We needed to move our data from the management company urgently and onto a new platform as soon as possible. We conducted several interviews and demos with different companies, but we considered Glue Up because it checked all our boxes including:
- It is affordable. Affordability is an important criterion for most non-profit organizations.
- It is flexible in managing data as we can use our data in different ways for both members and non-members.
- Glue Up has all the capabilities we were looking for such as easily tracking member data and communicating with members in one place. It does not require customization to get it to do what we needed it to do.
- It allows us to keep all our communications on one platform through email campaigns and surveys.
- It is an integrated platform with applications that connect to our website where people can apply for membership and register for conferences. We love that Glue Up easily plugs into all our operations.
An Easy Transitioning to Self-Management with Glue Up
Transitioning to self-management and implementing Glue Up’s membership management platform was an easy process. We exported our data from our previous management system and into an excel sheet that our Glue Up representative used to upload our information into the system. We could then easily manipulate the data once it was uploaded. Additionally, we had great support from our customer success representative. He was wonderful to work with and was always available to not only do things for us but also teach us how to do them ourselves.
A Fruitful Relationship of Feedback and Continous Improvement
Glue Up is very open to ideas and suggestions that help improve our and other clients’ experience on the platform. This is a real plus for us because Glue Up was quick to help us and even modify the system to ensure it could do some of the tasks we were not sure how to do. Glue Up is constantly improving based on our input and other clients. It has been great to have that kind of relationship with the Glue Up team, where we know we are heard and valued. For example, our customer success representative worked with the rest of the Glue Up team to ensure our accounting system, reports and financials integrate seamlessly after we had difficulties manipulating the system to work the way we wanted it to.
Stepping Up to the Plate with Glue Up
The COVID-19 pandemic put us in a situation that motivated the need for new membership management software and new partners while still maintaining our ability to offer our members the quality of service we offered initially. Glue Up gave us this opportunity by being an affordable system that allowed us to have everything we needed in one environment.
We helped our members through communication and through the community platform. We believe that Glue Up’s community platform is going to help keep our member community together, especially in engaging with members that were adversely affected by the pandemic. Staying in touch with our members and keeping them involved with our organization has been a seamless process. Glue Up definitely helps us engage and retain our members during this time.
The International Inbound Travel Association’s Achievements with Glue Up
We will be holding our first major event, the 2022 IITA Summit, in early 2022. In the coming months, we will be working on getting the event management system set up, and we are excited about a great outcome. Besides planning our upcoming event, Glue Up has made our communications more efficient by consolidating member data and other tools onto an all-in-one platform. It allows us to run reports, analyze results such as member engagement, campaign performance, and keeps all our data in one place. Consolidating all our data and improving data management is the most significant benefit we have experienced with Glue Up. It has helped solve the challenges we experienced in the past, such as tracking our data and having a system that had to be highly customized to get anything done. All our processes now flow seamlessly, and we can analyze how our members interact with the platform and modify our operations accordingly.
Effective Communication, Financial automation, and Customization
The email campaigns system has brought the most value to our organization. We communicate regularly and consistently with our clients as all our member data is in one place. The email and survey modules are customizable, allowing us to modify our email campaigns and surveys to match our brand. The system’s backend is easy to use and very integrated—from membership applications to renewals and other financial processes. For instance, all our membership application fees and renewals go directly into our bank. Glue Up is a highly integrated and intuitive platform, and this aspect has been most beneficial to our organization.
The Best Membership Management Software for Non-Profit Organizations
“Glue Up’s membership management software fit our budget at a time when the travel industry was adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Adopting Glue Up was an affordable way for us to keep all our membership benefits, and at the same time, reduce the costs of management. Moreover, Glue Up improved our management processes by combining systems that were initially separate onto one platform. I cannot overstate the value of this all-in-one solution, especially for small non-profit organizations with neither the time nor resources to use multiple software for membership management.”
Lisa Simon, Executive Director of the International Inbound Travel Association
A Leading Engagement Platform for Community-led Growth
As the travel industry recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Inbound Travel Association plans to focus on education to help people displaced in the industry through live and virtual events. Additionally, the two-person team that runs the organization plans to conduct government advocacy to help secure relief and financial aid for its company members and get the travel industry flowing freely once again. It is also getting its event platform up and running for upcoming events and plans to use Glue Up’s community engagement platform to engage its members in different ways through involvement, advocacy, and education processes.
Glue Up is a leading SaaS company specializing in community-led growth for member-based organizations, corporations, non-profits, marketers, and event professionals. With Glue Up, organizations can effectively manage, engage and grow their member communities and add value to the industries they serve. Book a demo of Glue Up’s Membership Management Software and discover why organizations stick with Glue Up.
