So you want to become a Travel Agent
So you want to become a travel agent. However, if you believe that all this entails is setting up an shop somewhere with a pile of holiday and destination brochures, expecting customer to pick a vacation from these and just sign the booking form you are sadly mistaken.
Although it is true that there are no formal qualifications needed before you can call yourself a Travel Agent, it is important that you possess some skills and competencies that will enable you to effectively fulfil your chosen role, especially if you wish to attract and keep your clients.
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of becoming a travel agent from a personal point of view is to ensure that you have an interest in helping people and therefore would be likely to possess good customer relationship skills, which includes patience. Travellers will want to learn as much as they can about the vacation they are intending to book and they will expect the travel agent to deal with them in a polite and respectful manner, irrespective of how busy he or she might be. For the same reasons, you will also need to have a good manner on the telephone.
Concerning your chosen career path there are also a number of attributes and skills that will be helpful. Although it probably should be obvious an interest in travel is beneficial. Customers will expect you to be enthused about the vacations you are trying to get them to purchase and if you are not they are likely to take their custom elsewhere. Furthermore, if you have travelled it will give you a better understanding of the issues that tourists face and some knowledge of the areas that people might want to visit, which will make your task of arranging vacations for clients easier to undertake.
Despite the fact that formal qualifications are not obligatory, they can be an added bonus, particularly if you are applying to work for a travel agency company. As you are likely to be dealing with leisure organisations at overseas destinations, foreign languages will be an advantage. In this respect, languages such as English, Spanish, Chinese, French and German will be considered a bonus by your employer. Other educational studies that will add weight to your chances of becoming a travel agent include history, culture and of course tourism.
Any and all of these subjects will help prepare you for the multi-faceted tasks that are faced by travel agents. For example, a qualification in tourism will give you an insight into how the needs of destinations, travel organisations, regulations and the tourists demands can be brought together to provide valuable vacation experience.
Finally, it is worthwhile enrolling in a travel agency course, which can be either a correspondence course, with an external educational facility or with your employer's organisation. Being a travel agent is not just about designing a vacation package for the customer, it also entails a disciplined approach to the management of all of the procedures and technicalities that are required to ensure that the vacation delivers the experience that has been designed and that any issues that might arise are appropriately addressed. If you can master all of these processes and satisfy the client then your career as a travel agent will blossom.
