[Travelandtourism] Travel agents need to change the game, not the name

[cheryl echevarria]

Travel agents need to change the game, not the name
By: Johanna Jainchill
June 15, 2010
When panel moderator Lalia Rach, the founding dean of New York University's 
hospitality school, asked the audience at CLIA's Cruise3sixty conference in 
Vancouver if they considered themselves "travel agents," not a single hand 
went up.

Those people who sell travel preferred job titles like "travel professional" 
or "travel adviser."

Carolyn Spencer-Brown of CruiseCritic.com, in blogging about the event, 
noted that for a consumer, "travel professional" is ambiguous.

"Couldn't that term encompass flight attendants and hotel executives and 
cruise ship crew members?" she asked.

The panelists said the problem was the image that the term travel agent 
carried.

"The cruise industry image has changed so much, but the image of the travel 
agent is still so dated," said Josephine Kling, co-founder of Landry & 
Kling, which specializes in cruise ship charters.

Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch, who was inducted into CLIA's Hall of Fame and 
honored at the Cruise3sixty gala dinner, said in an interview that he agreed 
that the term "travel agent" might not best convey what Virtuoso agents do. 
But he also said that simply changing titles wouldn't help the image of a 
travel agent.

"The problem is everybody gets that they don't want to be called a travel 
agent, but they don't get how they fundamentally become a travel adviser," 
he said. "Just calling yourself a travel adviser doesn't mean a darn thing 
if you don't revolutionize the way in which you find clients and interact 
with clients.

"People who truly have relationships with trust, who are proactive and look 
at customers in a holistic way, who are not just transaction-oriented... 
they are travel advisers," he said. "If you are in business trying to read 
the brochure faster upside down than your client... who cares what you call 
yourself

Cheryl Echevarria
Independent Travel Consultant
C10-10646

http://Echevarriatravel.com
1-866-580-5574

http://blog.echevarriatravel.com
Reservations at echevarriatravel.com
Affiliated as an Independent Contractor with Montrose Travel CST-1018299-10