There’s More to a Travel Career than Just Booking Trips

 There’s more to a travel career than just booking trips.

Contrary to popular belief (aka what the travel industry has always said was possible), there IS a lot that you can do with your love of travel besides just booking trips or writing about them.

Despite having a degree in tourism and hospitality management, I struggled for almost 10 years after university in figuring out what career I wanted to have that was related to travel.

Although I didn’t know back then what I wanted to do, I did know what I did NOT want to do. 

I have struggled with anxiety my whole life so having the responsibly of planning and booking someone’s trip wasn’t my thing although I had experience doing so for my friends and family as I traveled to over 84 countries myself.

Writing has never been an interest of mine either.  Yes, I have been in 100+ media outlets for my travel coaching, I have a popular travel blog, and have published a travel and mindset book but I didn’t want to turn writing into a career.

There was always a feeling deep within me that there must be something more out there if someone is passionate about travel.

And sure enough, there is!

As the industry and times evolve, more and more opportunities arise.

There are travel coaches specializing in a wide range of topics including spirituality, healing from trauma or loss, finding remote work-life balance, cultural diversity, mental wellbeing, corporate wellness, bleisure, creating a freedom-based lifestyle, transformative travel experiences, travel as therapy, eco-tourism, giving back to communities, and so much more.

What a beautiful time in the industry it is to get creative, authentic, and get real about turning your travel expertise and ideas into a thriving business.

With the rise of travel technology, the prioritization of wellness and self-care, the demand for work flexibility, the importance of sustainability and making our planet and communities better, the shift in how and why people travel, the use of travel as a tool to transform and heal, and more… you truly can do whatever it is that you dream of doing with your knowledge of travel.

In the Travel Coach Certification Program, I help you figure all of that out and more.

Are Travel Agencies a Scam?

Are travel agencies a scam?

 

Let me begin by saying that I do not believe that travel agencies are scams but there are some things that make me question the industry that I will be covering in this episode.

First off,  I do no think that being a travel agent is not a bad thing or you who is listening or reading this, if you’re a travel agent, is doing anything wrong.

I’m sharing research and news that is already out there and adding what I have realized as someone who is very involved in the tourism industry and runs a global network of travel coaches and professionals.

With that said, I also understand and agree that there are times when travel agents are definitely helpful. For example, planning special trips like bigger family vacations, honeymoons, weddings, special events, etc. and also I know that travel agents have access to special deals and discounts.

I totally get it. There are the perks.

But an industry like tourism that tells people that they can become an expert with little to no experience makes me question everything around their sales strategies.  

I mean, what industry out there is more personal than the tourism industry?  You don’t need to travel to over 84 countries like myself but you should have some built up passion, skills, and experience in traveling in order to understand just how powerful travel can be on our mind, body, and souls.

 

I know that this will ruffle many people’s feathers

You have worked so hard for so long in an industry that you love but the travel career industry has told you that this is the ONLY career that you could have. If you love travel, you must be a travel agent and plan and book trips.

But that’s not the case, at least not anymore.

 

The travel agent industry played a big role in creating many of the stigmas that exist around travel.

 

There, I said it.

 

For example:

Travel is too expensive

Travel is complicated

Traveling is unsafe if you plan it on your own

Any travel business that promotes online must be an MLM or a scam

Host agencies don’t really care about you

 

I remember talking to a friend years ago who knew that I loved to travel.  One day, she said “Sahara, I don’t even want to tell you how much we paid for our Italy vacation”. When I finally got it out of her, she replied “$20,000 for 2 weeks”.  I just about died.  I personally can spend about $10,000 in 6 months backpacking the globe and yes, I completely understand that my budget backpacking style isn’t up the same “standards” or “luxury” (which I beg to differ sometimes), than what a $20K trip may involve but, come on!?  Her trip not only cost a lot but there were also so many problems that she herself had to resolve and get involved with pre, during, and post trip, including continuous charges on her credit card by the agent.  Now, I know that this isn’t always the case but $20,000 for a mediocre trip to Italy for 2 weeks is a bit insane. 

The travel agent industry has also helped craft the idea that travel is a luxury or an experience that can happen only once or twice a year.  This stems from the fact that it will take a big bite out of most people’s budget.  When people turn to travel experts to take full control over their trips, they tend to get options of all of the add-ons that agents make commission off of as well.

There’s also the mentality that travel is far too complicated to do on your own without an expert or it leads to an unsafe experience. Staying in all-inclusive resorts, going on organized tours, having private drivers, and staying at fancy hotels with 5-star dining is the smartest way to travel.  Because why? The world is that unsafe? 

If you believe that travel is beneficial to people’s wellbeing and lifestyles, shouldn’t you be embracing the mentality that aspects of travel like local culture, community, people, places, traditions, food, and other ways of living are the best ways to get the transformative and meaningful travel experiences that people are craving in the first place?

The travel agent industry has contributed to the implication that all travel-related businesses or promotions must be MLM (multi-level marketing) or trying to recruit people.  I can’t tell you how often I see this happening or hear people assume that someone who runs a travel business is trying to do this.  I get it, everyone wants to “travel the world and get paid for it”.

Lastly, when I say that host agencies don’t really care about, I mean that their main goal is to grow a successful team of agents that book a lot of high-ticket trips so that THEY make money.  Oh yea, they like what you make your commission too.

 

Step it up- people can book on their own

Travel agents need to step it up.

Historically, travel agents stemmed from the lack of any other way for people to plan and book trips. Before the internet. But now, there are more resources, blogs, apps, and the sharing community, available than ever before and they continue to multiply by the day. People can plan and book their own trips easier and for less.

Remember, the pandemic amplified people’s desire to travel farther and more often, meaning that they will need to make their dollar stretch so if they are going to hire a travel professional, it better be for a really good purpose.

 

Stop Pigeon-holing Clients

If you wanted to sell travel, you had to “find your niche”. That meant that you had to decide if you wanted to sell a certain brand like Disney or Sandals, or you sold only luxury trips or group trips or family travel or to a certain demographic, and on and on.

That mentality around selling travel is so old-school. It is implying that only a certain demographic or type of person would be interested in a specific experience. But we all know that isn’t the case.  You cannot group people together and assume that they their demographics, income level, age, or travel style determines the overall outcome, feelings, or transformations that they are in search of on a trip.

The problem is that you aren’t selling travel nor are you selling experiences. You are selling an outcome, a transformation, a solution, a change, or a feeling.  That is why people truly want to “get away”. They are seeking something.  It’s up to you as the travel expert to help them reach that transformation or feeling based on the types of experiences that they need to have during their trip.

But the travel industry doesn’t tell you this. It tells you to sell, sell, sell. Book, book, book.

 

Stop taking full control

I get that travel agents were a great option for travelers to be able to travel safely around Covid-related restrictions, regulations, and information.  I also understand that a goal for many agents is to provide “a seamless” travel experience for people which entails them taking full control over the planning and booking process.

But did you know that

The anticipation can increase happiness and emotional equilibrium          

Planning is an easy way to dramatically boost personal happiness. Planners are happier than non-planners in personal relationships, their job, their company, physical health and well-being, and happier with how they spend their paid time off.

A study published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life showed that the highest spike in happiness came during the planning stage of a vacation.

 

What should you do then?

Like I said before, there is nothing wrong with being a travel agent or a travel advisor or a travel curator or a travel designer, or any other title that focuses solely on planning and booking trips but, I’d highly recommend that if you want to succeed in your travel business and struggle less, attract clients versus chase them, stand out in an overly-saturated industry, and have a business that aligns with your heart and soul, you should be changing your mindset and breaking down the boxes that the travel agent industry constructed for so long.  It’s a new day and age. Travel has changed. People have changed. 

 

Learn more at TheTravelCoachNetwork.com

It’s 2022 and I Can’t Believe that Tourism and Hospitality Brands are Still Training Travel Agents This Way

Over the past 2 years, I have tuned into numerous promotional webinars geared for travel agents and have attended several travel-related events that discuss innovation in the future of travel and guess what…

Things are still being done the exact same way as before.

Answer me this: If an industry was flipped upside down and a whole new set of values and pain points exist for its consumers over a 2-year span, should we be marketing and serving those consumers in the same exact way as before?

Let me help you… the answer is no.         

This is why I don’t understand why tourism and hospitality companies are “training” travel agents or providing promotional and educational resources to help with their sales strategies in the same manner as before.

As if the reasons why people travel, where they go, how long they go for, what they look for, what they value, what they need, what kind of experiences they desire, how they spend their money, and how they spend the time, haven’t changed.

Because it all has.

For an industry like tourism and hospitality that has billions of dollars dumped into innovation and marketing every year to be so far behind in giving people what they truly want AND for an industry that has the foundation of people (human beings) to not touch on people’s emotions and motivating factors for a travel experience, is beyond me.

In today’s world of travel agent portals and webinars, I hear and see cruise lines, hotels, and destinations spend the majority of their time touching on things like pools, amenities, spas, gyms, comfy beds, room size, square footage, types of restaurants available, transportation logistics, and generic tourism attractions like museums and amusement parks.

When instead, they should be training travel agents on how to touch on potential client’s human emotions and their underlying desire for wanting (or needing) to go on a trip based on what that brand has to offer.

People make purchasing decisions based on their emotions.  How they feel. People seek a feeling, a result, an outcome, or a transformation of some sort.

This is what the industry is lacking.

Travelers don’t go somewhere because they want an experience. They go somewhere because they seek fulfillment, human connection, soul-searching, answers, inspiration, quality time building bonds with loved ones, a change of routine, to find their passions or purpose in life, to get a mental break from work, to feel better, and far more meaningful reasons for traveling.

This is all based on research that I have conducted for over a decade.

The problem is that tourism and hospitality brands haven’t identified what it is that they are actually selling and providing people with because it is NOT an experience. That’s the overall process from point A to point Z, pre and post trip.

Until companies can figure that out, travel agents will continue to struggle to sell their destination, property, or “experience” as they sink deeper into the hole of the overly-saturated and surface-leveled approach to selling travel.

It’s 2022.  It’s time to reshape how and why people travel.

Adding Coaching to your Travel Business

 The term Travel Coaching is fairly new but the concept of coaching has been around for decades.

According to a chapter in Coaching in Islamic Culture, it reports that (quote) “between the 1940s and 1960s, some organisations provided their senior executives with counselling, delivered by occupational or organisational psychologists. These interventions were designed to support the executives to overcome barriers and excel at their work.” (end quote).

The chapter goes on to say (quote) “The modern incarnation of coaching can trace its roots back to the Human Potential Movement of the 1960s, a decade of exploration in human growth and development. “ (end quote).

Over the past decades, we saw tremendous growth in the coaching industry ranging in wellness coaching, life coaching, health coaching, spiritual coaching, parental coaching, business coaching, and more.

All of these forms of coaching are  (quote) “The art of facilitating the unleashing of people’s potential to reach meaningful, important objectives” (end quote)- says thought-leader Roskinski.

That growth is what inspired me to become a travel coach- not because I saw it plastered all over the place (granted when I started my travel coaching business, it was almost 5 years ago and wasn’t as spoken about as it is now)- but I knew that my path as a travel coach was what I wanted because I wanted to empower and help others to use the power of travel to help them in their own wellbeing, personal life, and work-life, like travel did for me.

I have seen an uptick in coaches in a wide range of niches, from health and wellness to life to and transformational coaches, and more, come into the travel coach network (and outside of the TCN)- combine their love, knowledge, and passion for travel with their interests, background, and expertise in another coaching field.

But what about if you don’t have a coaching background or experience?

What if you are a travel agent or a travel advisor, or a travel manager, or a tour operator, or some other role involving tourism and hospitality?

Or what about if you come from the medical industry? Maybe you are a doctor, therapist, or a pharmacist? – I’ve seen a big growth in this area as well combining their expertise with travel.

The question is, how do you combine coaching with your current travel or wellness business?

It’s about asking the right kind of questions.

It’s about getting to know your traveler (aka client’s) personal wants, needs, fears, goals, desires, concerns, and more.

It’s about connecting with them on a human level and having open communication and effective listening skills

It’s about creating a safe space for them to talk about where their desire for a trip comes from- I call this their motivating factors for travel. Lazlo at HTWW

WHY do they want to go somewhere? What does a sense of freedom mean to them? What does wellness mean to them?

What kind of outcome, solution, transformation, changes, or feelings are they in search of?

Why do they want to escape?

What sets their inner soul on fire?

Why does meeting new people, having new experiences, seeing new things, learning about new cultures, and all of those other reasons why people truly travel really mean to them?

No longer is travel solely about the transaction between an agent and a client.

No longer is travel solely about the cold hard facts of an itinerary

No longer is wellness travel separate from travel overall

Because wellness IS travel and travel IS wellness

The TCCP and the TCN community are the places that you will want to be to learn more about how you can combine your coaching with your current travel or wellness business.

Or maybe you’re in a whole other space and you want to combine it with your love of travel.

It’s my goal to make you think. To push you to get creative. To think outside of your box and the boxes that the travel industry has built around travel careers for years.

I encourage you to do more. Think bigger. And go bigger.

I encourage you to take that leap and that risk and create the business of your dreams. 

Hear more about Travel Coaching and the Travel Coach Certification Program on the TCN Podcast!

What is a travel coach and how is it different from a travel agent?

 

When you hear the term “Travel Coach”, you may initially think it means a “Travel Agent”.  I can completely understand why. Travel coaching is a newer concept. When I started my wellness travel coaching business over 4 years ago, there was little to no one talking about it.  That doesn’t mean that no one was doing it though.  I have countless people throughout the years who have said that they have been a travel coach for years or that they were doing it but just didn’t know what it could be called.

 

Since travel coaching has grown tremendously in the past few years, especially after the pandemic has shined a bright light on the value that travel has on our personal and work life, I have come to learn that there are several definitions of what a travel coach is or does.

 

Some of the definitions that I have heard are people who coach travel agents or simply, someone who still just plans and books trips.

 

But that’s not what a travel coach means in the TCN.

 

A Travel Coach and a Travel Agent are two very different careers within the travel industry.

 

Let’s start with a travel agent.  Pretty much everyone is familiar with the term “travel agent”.  When you think of a travel agent, you think of going on a vacation and sipping pina coladas on a beach on a Caribbean island for a week then returning home and back to your usual daily routine.

 

When you hire and pay for a travel agent to book a trip for you, you are letting them do everything for you including the research, booking of flights and accommodations, and more.  You are depending on their research, knowledge, and work to (hopefully) provide you with a marvelous trip.  You will most likely pay a pretty penny for hiring the travel agent which may refrain you from traveling as often as you may like.  In addition, once you return from your trip that the travel agent booked, you are left in the same position on the lack of knowledge on booking your own travels so you may resort to hiring and paying for another travel agent because you just aren't sure on where to go, how to find deals, or anything else that you leave up to the travel agent to do for you.

 

Travel agent work is traditionally transactional. I know that that has been changing over the years with travel agents changing their names to travel advisors, which is what the American Society of Travel Agents changed to.

 

You also hear about travel designers, travel consultants, travel concierge, travel counsellors, and more.

 

But their main goal is still to plan itineraries, ease the process of a trip, and deal with the bookings.

 

With this evolution of the term travel agent, it goes to show the changing needs and desires of the traveler. They are looking for more control, more of a purpose, reaching certain goals, truly personal and unique experiences that change them in some way, a transformation, certain outcomes and feelings, and more.

 

Travel professionals must be able to provide tools and guidance at each stage of the traveler journey while adding a human-centric approach

 

 

bonnie smith, GM at FCM Travel Solutions South Africa – (quote) “Travellers will demand more from their travel agency. Forget transactional booking agents, travel management companies that are able to support their clients at every stage of the traveller journey, providing them with all the information and resources they need, will have a distinct advantage in the future.” (end quote)

 

She goes on to say:

 

(quote) "Soft skills like empathy, communication and the ability to listen are more important than ever," says Smith. "Travel agents need to be engaged and responsive (especially when things go wrong), and willing to go the extra mile. Grit, adaptability, flexibility – the list goes on. The travel agent of the future is an expert, a specialist, a therapist and someone to lean on." (end quote)

 

You must consider the entire journey.

 

Amadeus- (quote) “Travel consultants now need to act as ‘personal travel assistants’ who are partially data scientists, partially lifestyle gurus and who move away from providing information to offering personalized guidance.” (end quote)

 

The industry as a whole is recognizing this need for change in how the travel experience is done.

Travel coaching is all about helping people set intentions for their trip. It is about putting control back into the hands of the traveler.  A travel coach inspires, empowers, educate, supports, and guides you on the best and most effective travel information and how to use that information, resources, and tools to not only travel more often but also how to use the power of travel to help you as a person, your life direction, and your career path.

 

Because every traveler is unique and knows and loves something different about travel, that makes travel coaches and their areas of focus vast and personal.

 

Travel coaching is about helping people make less excuses about not taking that trip, it’s about helping people suffering from trauma use travel to heal, it’s about empowering people to learn how to plan and book travel on their own terms and budget, it’s about helping to stop those limiting beliefs or those mindset barriers, it’s about getting to the roots of WHY someone truly wants or needs an escape and using that travel experience to help them transform their life and reach their goals.

 

Travel coaching is what YOU as the travel expert want to make out of it because the sky is the limit on what is possible, who you can, and how you can make a difference in the lives of others through the power of travel. 

 

Hear more from the TCN founder Sahara Rose, on the TCN Podcast!