When it comes to selling romance travel, Susanne Hamer, CTC, a honeymoon specialist with the Travel Store and three-time winner of Travel&Leisure’s Top Travel Agent List as a French Polynesia and Fiji specialist, wrote the book—literally.

The Travel Store has a team of eight honeymoon and destination wedding specialists for whom Hamer wrote a training manual. She was instrumental in designing the Travel Store’s honeymoon website, www.tshoneymoons.com, and is working on its destination wedding website.

She says that it’s key to talk to both the bride and groom when planning a honeymoon, and to that end she schedules a telephone conference or face-to-face meeting with both.

“I don’t want just one talking to me, because then I don’t realize what the other wants,” she says.

Her first question (“What’s your dream honeymoon?”) gets the ball rolling. She finds clients either are very specific, right down to the resort they want, or have no clue. Even when clients tell her exactly what they want, it ain’t necessarily so, Hamer says. She recently had a new client who found her online and wanted a specific resort in Tahiti. Hamer thought this would be a piece of cake and gave him an itinerary, but then the client had doubts.

“So I said, ‘OK, let’s start over,’” she recalls, and asked him what was most important; based on his reply she chose a completely different destination. In another instance, a bride kept talking about Europe and assured Hamer that her fiancé wanted to go to Europe as well. Finally Hamer met the fiancé, who kept returning to her Tahiti material.

“I said, ‘Do you want to go to Tahiti?’” Hamer continues. The groom said no, he wanted to go to Europe. But the next day, he emailed her and said he wanted to go to Tahiti.

She doesn’t ask about budget until the very end. Again, the couple either has no clue or is very exact. At that point Hamer can tell the couple if their budget matches the honeymoon they’ve planned. If the budget is too small, she asks if the couple can stretch their funds and reminds them of the Travel Store’s honeymoon registry, which allows friends and family to contribute to the nuptial trip.