I am a 27 year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces that travelled all over the world on multiple military deployments and taskings. During that time I saw some very dangerous places, but was also afforded time off to see some amazing places as well. That appetite for travel mixed with a very strong work ethic and organizational skills from the military made for a very seamless transition to a second career as a Travel Advisor. I met the owner of Vacations for Canadians (Teena Dowd) while on a hosted cruise and voiced how I saw myself as a good fit for the agency and what I could bring to the table, as if I was having an initial interview right there. At a minimum, make a good impression. It must have worked because shortly after we returned from that cruise, an opening for a travel advisor within Vacations for Canadians was posted and I had an interview and was hired shortly after that. I have only been an advisor since January 17, 2023.
For me, I knew that I was going to be doing a lot of travel after retiring from the military. When I started making travel arrangements for different trips, there were always little errors here and there. Now granted, we were coming out of a pandemic so most agents were fairly new so I suppose a little grace period was required. But I know from my military background that I am very detail focused so I have a higher expectation than some for the type of product I expect from an agent. I felt I could do this job given my background, especially with the amount of courses I’ve done on communications and presentation and felt very natural interacting with people and thought that would translate well with travel clientele. Since then I have been on cruises with our clients and interacting with them, to rave reviews. Having had great feedback from clients, and had great success accomplishing sales milestones with two different cruise lines in my first year. While I always thought I could be good at this, it has exceeded expectations in year one.
Interacting with the clients. Getting to know them and understanding their travel interests and disinterests so that I can tailor-build the vacation they want, rather than offer something that just isn’t for them because I didn’t take the time to get to know them or what they want. While a post pandemic [world] sees a lot more travel advisors working remotely, being able to bring back a bit of personal touch through phone calls gives comfort in hearing a voice genuinely excited in speaking with them about the travel interests and where they’ve been and what they liked about it. From that we can extract the type of traveller they are and hopefully find that next great adventure for them.
The administrative side. There is a lot of paperwork involved in this because you’re literally working out travel contracts with clients and despite similar travel destinations, there are small details that can make them all very different and it’s that attention to detail that needs to be properly documented so they’re not left stranded somewhere or left unprepared for something during their trip. But it’s a necessary evil so we all do it and we do it so the client can travel worry-free.
Market yourself. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there because the more relatable you become, the more people will be drawn to you and want to work with you. There is a certain level of comfort and trust that can be generated from something as simple as a video of yourself on holidays and sharing it with your clientele.
While that is slowing down now, there is still an appetite to travel. But now as prices increase and cruise lines cut back the offers that were in place to bring back the clients, it’s about selectivity.The travel budget won’t stretch as far as a year or two ago so now it’s about making sure you have the perfect fit for their travel budget as they will be that much more selective about where they’re going.
There are a lot of reasons. Having the confidence of working with someone who can answer the questions you don’t know. And if they don’t know, the faith in them that they will find out for you. A lot of lost hours in a day are spent waiting to speak to someone on the phone when a travel advisor could have answered that for you. Or have them on the phone so you don’t need to be. Plus travel advisors are offered promotional offers to extend to their clients you wouldn’t have by working alone on a travel plan. Or the familiarity of having done these trips and visited these locations ourselves and know the products we offer so well that we can be relied upon to make recommendations that hold merit.
All ages. Certainly different demographics will lean more towards certain products over others and that’s where knowing the industry well, we can be relied upon to recommend the right one to the right client. Which only emphasizes even more the importance of getting to know the clients so you don’t misjudge someone and put them into a category they don’t belong in. Referrals play a great part in bringing in younger clientele, as does social media. Having a good knowledge of both can really assist in bridging the gap with those types of clients.
For me, it is about the experience. I can relate a lot more to a destination based on the experience I had there. The people, the culture, the food, the environment, the landscape. All of these blend together and paint a portrait for me and become ingrained in my memory bank. And then when someone asks me about a travel destination, it becomes more than just what you say. It’s the excitement in your voice or the look on your face. Because you are already looking at that portrait and remembering what made it so special for you. For me, that was a visit to the Galapagos Islands. Interacting with naturalists for a week and getting to understand and appreciate our surroundings, constantly learning. And having the ability to be close to wildlife so special and so rare yet so protected and not afraid of the visitors to their habitats because they had become comfortable with us and weren’t threatened by our presence. And we had a mutual respect for their environment and didn’t want to impact it and felt a duty to protect it. Snorkelling with penguins, sharks, turtles, and stingrays. So up close and personal to sea lions and seals and multiple species of wild birds. Just amazing. But also the incredible food and meeting residents of a small island there where we were fed a wonderful meal and treated to a traditional dance performance by locals.
Only being a year into this and staying mostly focused on contemporary cruise lines and not venturing too much into premium/luxury lines yet, my expensive bookings are more towards trips that are a lot longer or feature very exotic locations. As I continue to build my clientele base, it’s been about the quantity of bookings over the lesser frequent big ticket bookings. I would say I enjoy the success of multiple bookings on one product more. I would love to do more work with large hosted groups or small corporate groups. I just hosted a cruise on Celebrity with 114 guests and loved hosting special events for them on the ship, interacting with them face to face and getting to know our clients better and them getting to know me. And then from that build client loyalty and at the same time, build referrals from those clients. The same can be said for corporate groups. Taking a small group and building an exclusive product that not only includes a cruise, but airfare, airport transfers, accommodations, a golf day prior to the cruise, as well as dedicated events for team building on a cruise before the return trip home.
It’s tough because the introduction of fees is to compensate us for all the work we do behind the scenes to make these trips happen, and often at a great savings to our clients. But at the same time the introduction of certain fees can price us out against bigger names like Expedia or Costco. It’s a fine balancing act of only charging fees where needed to protect the agents but at the same time maintain our pricing competitiveness against other agencies or your Expedia/Costco rivals.
