What does it take to be a travel consultant?
June 12th 2008 10:11
You thought being a travel agent/consultant was easy? All you do, is to greet customers, get their holidays booked and pocket the commission right?
That's what I thought before I started. I am not so sure anymore.
I have only started the new job exactly 10 day ago, and it has been a steep learning curve for me. Well, firstly, we had to learn all about being a travel consultant. It's not as easy as just following simple steps to get your job done. Being a travel consultant actually require good customer service skills at the same time as good sales skills; you need to be attentive to the smallest details and be quick on your feet. There is no format to follow because no two customers are the same.
The model is simple. You find a flight price, add all the taxes on it, book the seats and make your customers happy that they are going on holidays. What customers don't always realise, is the amount of work that goes behind that computer screen.
Other products aside, the flight availability and bookings system is extremely complex. For those in the technical world, it is like administering a mainframe system. Everything is in codes and commands and if you don't know the command to check the pricing on a particular day for a particular airline, then you might as well not start.
Once you know how to find the pricing, you then need to check the ticket conditions. Once again, not everyone knows that for an economy pricing on an international flight can have up to 7 different price categories each with their own set of rules. So there is no point in telling a customer they can get a seat for $1000 if that particular pricing does not allow you to book seats on certain flights at certain times witin certain regions.
And then, there are all the other products such as travel insurance/tours/hotels and car hire and land transport, each with their own rules, systems and pricing. From the time the customer first call or walk into the shop to the time when they have everything booked and paid for can actually take hours to complete. While everything is being sorted it is also the travel agent's job to keep the customer entertained by engaging them in small talk while still typing in stuff in the hope to have everything done quicker (and without making mistakes because one small mistake can cost hundreds of dollars out of our pockets!)
However, it's not a job without its perks. Travel agents get industry discounts for flights and hotels (which, I can tell you, sometimes is really not that much - so don't envy us just yet!) and I get to read about everything travel, which is something I love.
I guess just like any other job, you need to really have a passion for the industry to really love it. This is just my 2 cents on being a travel agent.
That's what I thought before I started. I am not so sure anymore.
I have only started the new job exactly 10 day ago, and it has been a steep learning curve for me. Well, firstly, we had to learn all about being a travel consultant. It's not as easy as just following simple steps to get your job done. Being a travel consultant actually require good customer service skills at the same time as good sales skills; you need to be attentive to the smallest details and be quick on your feet. There is no format to follow because no two customers are the same.
The model is simple. You find a flight price, add all the taxes on it, book the seats and make your customers happy that they are going on holidays. What customers don't always realise, is the amount of work that goes behind that computer screen.
Other products aside, the flight availability and bookings system is extremely complex. For those in the technical world, it is like administering a mainframe system. Everything is in codes and commands and if you don't know the command to check the pricing on a particular day for a particular airline, then you might as well not start.
Once you know how to find the pricing, you then need to check the ticket conditions. Once again, not everyone knows that for an economy pricing on an international flight can have up to 7 different price categories each with their own set of rules. So there is no point in telling a customer they can get a seat for $1000 if that particular pricing does not allow you to book seats on certain flights at certain times witin certain regions.
However, it's not a job without its perks. Travel agents get industry discounts for flights and hotels (which, I can tell you, sometimes is really not that much - so don't envy us just yet!) and I get to read about everything travel, which is something I love.
I guess just like any other job, you need to really have a passion for the industry to really love it. This is just my 2 cents on being a travel agent.
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