Travel advisor, agent, consultant, expert, manager, counsellor, planner, broker or designer? What is the best title to describe what you do? And does it matter anyway?
Among today’s trendy travel industry role descriptions, there are numerous job titles to describe what a travel agent does. But are they helpful to the general public as descriptors and points of difference? Or is it just more confusing for everybody?
Generally speaking, when it comes to careers, car mechanics have always been, well, car mechanics. Builders are builders and, well, I could go on, but you get the idea. Unless you’re a specialist car mechanic (Vintage cars, for example), people typically and quickly have a basic understanding of what you do when you tell them, minus an explanation.
When someone pipes up that they are a travel agent at a barbecue, it’s assumed (after everyone’s asked them if there are any hot specials on to Bali right now) that they sell everything from a package to Bali to cruises around the world, and that they must have travelled to every country under the sun.
Case and point by genius Christian Hull, aka Trish the Travel Agent…
That’s because the traditional job title ‘Travel Agent’ has been around for a rather long time.
The first travel agency, Cox & Kings Ltd., was founded in 1758, and Thomas Cook himself guided 500 people on his first excursion in 1841. The guests on the trip all paid one shilling each for a return train journey from Leicester to Loughborough, a mere 20 km away.
Oh, the crazy stories Thomas must have had.
Travel agencies became more commonplace with the development of commercial aviation, beginning in the 1920s. Initially, travel agencies primarily catered to middle- and upper-class customers, but the post-war boom in mass-market package holidays to Europe led to their growth on the main streets of most British towns, serving a working-class clientele looking for a convenient way to book overseas beach holidays to places like Benidorm and Mallorca in Spain.
By the 70’s, Cox & Kings and Thomas Cook had established a chain of agencies staffed by Travel Agents all over the UK.
Fast forward to 2018, and the move away from perceptions of being a traditional transacting-only agent to being valued as a more consultative, problem-solving expert is a positive step for everyone, as it rightly underscores the significance of what many agents do.
Being a Travel Agent is and always has been a professional career. And if anything, it’s a role that is only becoming more esteemed as travel becomes more complex, confusing and often, disruptive, with so many new products, air routings, niches and creative travel styles desired by today’s travellers.
We all love the internet, but booking engines and robots replacing agents? It’s not happening anytime soon.
Even Millennials are using travel agents, and no one said that would ever happen. You can read more about that here.
Smart Travel Agents know that their best clients are only becoming more time-poor and in need of empathy, help, ideas, support and value as a service. They’re also tired of being let down online and left in the lurch when things go pear-shaped or their plans change.
There’s gold in them hills because clients are happy to pay for quality service. So, how important is your role name?
The American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), the world’s largest association of travel professionals, recently rebranded as ‘the American Society of Travel Advisors’ and launched a new marketing campaign titled “We’ll take you there.”
The move represents the first name change from ‘Agents’ to ‘Advisors’ for the organisation in almost 75 years, a period during which, from its founding in 1931 until 1944, it was known as the ‘American Steamship and Tourist Agents Association’. Hmm, not quite so catchy that one.
Zane Kerby, ASTA president and CEO, says of the name change, “ASTA’s new name more accurately describes the value our members provide to consumers and is a distinct declaration of who we work for: the travelling public. It also reflects the renewed prominence of the travel advisor industry and our role as a leading voice.”
So the answer to the great name debate is probably that every title has merit and depends on you and the travel group you work with. Each descriptor comes with its own perceptions, so choose the title that works best for you or your brand.
It’d be great to see some formal research as to what the general public thinks or whether they even care, for that matter. Perhaps you’ve done some research of your own?
Advisors, agents, consultants, experts, planners, managers, counsellors, brokers and designers (Did I miss any?)…
What do you think? Should there be one name, or many?
