Travel Agents are like snowflakes and come in all shapes, sizes and colours of the rainbow. But not all Travel Agents wear uniforms. Should they?
Today on KarryOn we’re going to dig into this topic.
In the world of Travel Agent-ing, we basically have three camps: the uniformers, the freestylers, and the corporates.
But let’s concern ourselves with the first two camps in this article. And let’s look at some of the psychological effects of wearing/not wearing a uniform. Then we can ask whether all Agents should wear one.
So on the one side we have those Agents that wear some kind of company-sponsored uniform (such as Flighties). Whilst on the other side are Agents (such as STA Travel) who can basically wear whatever the hell they want at work, within reason – for example, you can’t show up to work on Monday morning looking like this:
Source: dailystar.co.uk
Gross!
Now it’s true, there hasn’t as yet been any solid research done behind the psychological effects of Travel Agent uniforms in the travel industry. That area hasn’t been studied – at least not to my knowledge.
But there’s another area of life that we can draw upon to illuminate the discussion that’s very similar to our question at hand, and – best of all – it has been researched. That other situation is, of course, the school uniform.
According to research, school uniforms have been found to foster a sense of community, confidence and discipline amongst students. It was also found that uniformed students were much less likely (compared to non-uniformed students) to miss class, be late or exhibit signs of bad behaviour.
Now, apart from the not miss class or rocking up late bit (mainly thanks to alcohol and industry events; ahem, Buzz Nights), I’d have to argue that these same qualities are found in unformed Travel Agents and agencies. And then there’s the obvious professionalism that agents in uniform have.
But now let’s turn to the freestylers. According to research, uniforms were found to limit creativity, self-expression and independent thought.
Now, in a job where all three such qualities are absolutely vital -after all, problem solving on the fly, being an excellent communicator and being able to come up with your own ideas and itineraries are all in a day’s work for a Travel Agent – I’d say that those are massive advantageous.
So getting back to our original question then: should Travel Agents have to wear uniforms?
Well, I don’t think the answer is a simple yes or no. I would argue that uniforms are better suited to some environments and certain types of clients, whist other environments (and customer groups) are better served by Agents that wear whatever they want.
For example, if you’re involved in a team environment where there are fixed ways of doing things and monthly targets, then perhaps the uniform is the best choice. The uniform will foster a team spirit and get everyone working together and towards their own goals.
However, when working in a more niche section of the travel market (e.g., adventure travel) or when you’re working for yourself as a Mobile Travel Agent, I can see how not wearing a uniform would be advantageous.
It would, for instance, enable you to more effectively relate to the client and help you express your “brand” better through the clothes you choose to wear.
But enough of what I think. You guys are the experts, so what do you think?
