How do I get into the travel business?

We are often asked, “How can I get into the travel business?”

My first response to the question is actually another question.  Why do you want to get into the travel business?  The worn out response we usually hear is generally something having to do with a love for travel.  “I just love to travel!” (Grrroan, shoot me now.) Loving to travel is important to this job, but that’s is the easy part.  If just a love for travel were necessary, then almost anyone could be a great agent.  (And let me assure you that that is NOT the case.)  To make a career as a travel agent, to actually support yourself doing this and not just make it an expensive hobby, you have to be able to get into people’s heads.  You have to figure out what they want that they’re not telling you.  You have to navigate tricky family politics.  You have to keep thousands of bits of information about various hotels, destinations and airlines straight in your head and be able to recall them when needed.  You have to be able to look at options not through your own preferences, but through the eyes of the person who is trusting you with their vacation.

That said, I actually dread the question of how to get into the travel business because there isn’t a really clear answer anymore.

Back in the day, there were travel schools where you would go and pay money, sit in a classroom for a certain amount of time, then graduate with a certificate that many recognized as meaning you were qualified to begin your career in travel.  Marty and Philip in our office actually both went to such schools.

The problem now is that, for one thing, there aren’t very many (any?) of those schools around any more.  The other thing is that it is questionable how much those schools ever prepared you for a career as a travel agent, and that is more true today than ever.  You see, the main thing those schools taught was how to operate a GDS (Global Distribution System).  These days, operating a GDS is becoming less and less important if it isn’t already completely irrelevant.  Technology has evolved to the point where memorizing commands to enter into a blank screen to pull up airline availability isn’t necessary.

I did find a few online training options where you can pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $1500.00 and do online courses and receive a certificate.  You could do that, then try to get on with an agency.  I’m not sure how effective it would be.  It wouldn’t help you get hired with us.

This brings me to the reason I dread this question.  We choose people because of their personalities.  None of the people we’ve hired in the last 15 years had a background in travel.  We hired them because we feel they have the personality traits to be successful helping people with vacations.  They are engaging, they are at least not afraid of technology, they are coachable, they are friendly. (Most notably, none of them had prior experience in the travel industry.)

I’m not sure what other agencies look for.  I think that alot of them hire people who have worked in other travel agencies before.  Of course, that opens the whole “chicken and the egg” dilemma.  Perhaps in the future I’ll tell people to call around to several agencies to get a better rounded idea.

That’s a hard thing to explain to someone who is wanting a straight path to a new career.