Being a travel agent is a fun and rewarding job because you get to assist individuals experience some of their most memorable moments. Travel agents help people and groups who are traveling for business or pleasure with their travel plans. You get to create trips and itineraries for clients looking for enjoyable vacations as a travel agent. You would be planning business client travel, calculating expenses and costs, and making reservations for hotels, lodging, rental cars, excursions, and other special events. After examining the demands and requirements of the customers, you will offer fare information and recommend appropriate locations.
If you want to take up this exciting job, then you must develop the following skills:
1. Excellent communication and negotiation skills
As a travel agent, you need to an excellent communicator so that you are able to broker the best deals from the hoteliers, transporters and event organizers, and other stake holders to be able to offer the best quotes to the clients. Even your newsletters, fliers and other written communication that you send to your prospective customers should be crisp, concise, informative and exciting to read.
2. Friendly and pleasing personality
Your personality should be friendly and pleasing so that whenever one meets you, he should be impressed by you and comes to you only for all his travel needs. He should also refer you to his friends and family. Your friendly nature doesn’t only help you in winning customers but it also strengthens your relationship with your vendors and fellow travel agents. And such networks help you in consolidating your business as a travel agent.
3. Technical skills
In today’s times, every business is going digital and the travel industry is one such industry that has fully integrated internet-based operations. As a travel agent, you need to be tech savvy and comfortable working on the internet in order to stay relevant and competitive in the industry. You must know also know how to use social media to your advantage as social media is a very powerful and inexpensive tool that can catapult your travel business to great heights.
4. Good attention to detail
As a travel agent, you should be able to understand the psyche of the customers and plan their itinerary in such a way that the travelers would be able to explore many places in shorter time and that too without getting exhausted. You should plan the itineraries keeping in mind the interests and preferences of the individuals or groups you are catering to. Some clients may be visiting the same location for leisure and adventure, while others may go for historical excursions or archaeological exploration.
A travel agent requires a lot of juggling to do. You would be making travel arrangements and itinerary for customers going to Europe, making hotel bookings for customers going to Asia or managing the guests who just arrived in Canada. All this in a day’s work! Thus, you need to have great organizational abilities and an acute attention to detail.
5. Being creative and imaginative
Tourism industry entails selling dreams and experiences to people. It is not just about booking tickets or making hotel arrangements. As a travel guide, you should be imaginative and creative to plan holidays and create itineraries which would be exciting and adventurous for the customers. Your travel arrangements for the customers should go beyond their expectations. It would be an excellent skill to get them a table at a fully reserved diner or to get them tickets for a prestigious concert at the destination.
6. Good management and administrative skills
As a travel agent, it would be a great advantage for you to have appropriate knowledge of management principles and business skills such as strategic planning, human resource management and coordination of people, allocation of resources, leadership skills. If you acquire these skills, you would be able to get good deals for your customers.
7. Good knowledge of geography and holiday destinations
Having a good knowledge of basic geography and various destinations would be an added advantage for a travel guide. You should be able to describe the features, locations, even flora and fauna of a particular destination to arouse the curiosity and willingness to visit the location by the customer. If you are an expert in travel destinations, you will be able to convince your customers without much effort. Customers depend on the advice of their travel agent to make the most out of their holiday. The professional advice and personal inputs of the travel agent goes a long way in making their vacation a memorable experience. Thus, your own passion for travel and knowledge of hotels, destinations and airlines will provide your customers a good holiday package.
8. Ability to generate sales
As every other business, the ultimate goal of a travel agency is to generate sales. Being a travel agent, you need to be able to convert queries into sales, be prompt in following up leads and keep in touch with potential customers. You also need to stay prepared for any kind of query or enquiry that a customer may raise. If you have a competitive edge, you would be able to close the deal efficiently as it is common knowledge that customers often shop around before making a purchase.
Master the above-mentioned skills and then sky is the limit. You would succeed with flying colors in your travel agency career. Work on yourself and learn by observing your colleagues and channel partners. This career path is rewarding as well as challenging. The more you hone your skills the more bucks you’ll make.
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