In June, thousands of graduate students of specialized tourism universities across the country receive long-awaited diplomas. It is time to start a professional path. Among the variety of tourism professions, one of the most popular is the tourism manager. We decided to help novice professionals and tell how to reach the heights in the travel industry and Become a Travel Agent.
You will be surprised, but finding a job as a travel manager is not so easy. As a rule, travel agencies require job seekers from work experience, but where to get it if employers refuse one by one? If you have the necessary inclinations, and most importantly desire, for starters, you can try to get an assistant manager. Yes, it will take some time to work “on the catch”, but you can get much-needed experience. Many travel agencies at the beginning of the high season prefer to hire one or two young employees for the future. Many current successful travel agents have come to the profession this way.
Endless job searches are over. You have finally been hired. What’s next? How to understand this tourism, which you had dreamed of, but you really don’t have a real idea where you got to. Dreams and real life are far apart. Many are attracted to the tourism business because of the well-known misconception that manager’s workdays consist of constant trips around the world. Yes, tourism managers attend advertising tours, participates in tourism exhibitions, but this is their job. Try to see twenty or even more hotels a day, even in the unbearable heat! This is not for you to lie under a palm tree with a cocktail in your hand.
Some newcomers leave tourism after the first month of work. Some say that this is not their bread. Others that do not withstand the crazy pace of tourism are losing their nerves, their brains are boiling. And that’s good, natural selection is taking place. The weak leave, only those who are interested in tourism remain and this work is his vocation.
Simple but important tips for a budding travel manager
Study, study and study again! Whatever your higher education, profile or not, you will have to study. Absorb all the important and necessary information for the job. Learn from company managers, management and foreign partners. You will be especially lucky if you find yourself in a friendly team where everyone supports each other, but is not ready to eat. Improve your professional level: read magazines, books, articles on tourism topics, sit on travel sites.
Advertising tours are needed like air to those managers who work to send tourists abroad. Often managers are not allowed to go on advertising tours or do not want to send for free. In the latter case, go on a working trip for your money. In the part of travel agencies, employees, on the contrary, are sent to advertisers several times a year almost forcibly, often paying half the cost of the tour. Wherever you settle down, remember, if you do not go to fam-trips and watch the objects that you sell, then in the end there will be such a situation that your tourists will know several times more than you.
Attend various tourist trainings, seminars, exhibitions and workshops. Travel yourself. The main point, without which the tourism business is impossible, is tourists. Immediately they will not fall to you from heaven, like manna from heaven. Work with the company’s tourist base, and over time new ones will appear that will begin to come to you. Seek and attract them yourself.
Qualities and knowledge that will help the novice tourism manager to work
The tourism manager is a subtle psychologist. He must be good at understanding people. Often a tourist himself does not know what he wants: “I want to go there, I don’t know where.” The manager’s task is to find out the tourist’s need and offer exactly what he needs at the moment, given his capabilities.
In addition, only a sociable person can work in the tourism industry. The tourism manager works with a large flow of people. Each tourist will demand maximum attention and ask a sea of questions. Your task is to find an approach to everyone. To do everything possible so that as many tourists as possible become permanent.
Foreign language skills: This does not mean that you should be a polyglot, but you must know at least English at a conversational level. Otherwise, how will you conduct correspondence or negotiations with foreign partners.
And the last tip: learn to listen to your tourists, be tolerant of them and attentive to all the details!
