It’s that’s time of year again. You frantically search for the school bag, hoping NOT to find a six week old lunch inside it. Your kids refuse to get dressed in any sort of timely manner. They can’t find anything, they’re starving, but don’t want breakfast… Parenting your kids can be a tough gig. Parenting your clients is a whole other thing entirely.
When looking into what term best described a travel agent, Karryon considered all the many and varied roles that an advisor takes on. And while the consensus seems to be that the best term is ‘advisor’, that still doesn’t encompass the breadth of your role.
It was when my seven year old insisted she knew what I was saying and then proceeded to immediately ask me what I’d just said, that I realised the truth. Travel advisors are more like parents than they are anything else.
Parents and advisors have near boundless patience
Advisors, likes parents, are to be commended for feigning even the most basic level of interest in, let’s be honest, some pretty boring conversations. But that very lovely, if chatty, longtime client telling you about her arthritis is far better than those horror customers. Because some clients (like some kids) are just jerks. Your patience reserves have to run deep for those ones.
Parents and advisors are logistic legends
It’s Kid 2’s gymnastics on Tuesday, which is after Kid 1’s piano but before Kid 2’s basketball. If you can juggle the many extra-curricular activities of your children, consider a career as a travel advisor. If you’re a travel advisor without kids, after school taxi-service is nothing compared to getting your clients back home in the middle of a pandemic.
Parents and advisors are like calendar reminders
Have you done your homework? Have you sorted your visa? Yes, you have to do the reading. Yes, you need to pay for an ESTA.
If you like repeating yourself, and managing multiple calendars, you are on the right path!
Parents and advisors just know
Parents know their kids. Advisors know their clients. However it does not follow that the kids and the clients may listen. The good ones get it eventually. You just have to stick it out and deal with the grumbling. Accepting, of course, that it’s your fault.
Parents and advisors are a phone call away
When you’re stuck in Algeciras with food poisoning having missed the train to Madrid, who do you call? Your parents and your travel agent. They will answer. They will fix things.
Parents and advisors do it for love
A parent’s love is confounding. Why we put our everything into the little terrorists we call our children confuses me. Is it obligation? Narcissism? Some biological urge we can’t escape? Nah – it’s love.
The pandemic has proven that agents don’t do it for the money. For a long time there was no money. They just love what they do. They might be nutjobs or sadists, but that’s who I want booking my travel.
