What can a travel consultant can do for you?
Is your travel consultant doing their best for you?
I have to start this week’s newsletter with saying that I absolutely have the best clients any travel consultant could ever ask for. I love planning travel for all of my clients, so when I hear that something goes wrong, I have to find out why! Last week I had an amazing group of people take a nice romantic weekend getaway to Jamaica. The weekend was filled with great friends, good food, and fun. Unfortunately, the return home didn’t go as smoothly as the rest of the weekend. What should have been a 5-hour journey home turned into 15 hours of miscommunication, multiple flights, and several tired people who just wanted to get home to their families.
Now waking up the next morning and reading their emails, I couldn’t believe that they had gone through this nightmare but I was on a mission to find out what I could do for them. You see some travel consultants feel that once you have left for the vacation, their job is done. I don’t feel that way. Every one of my clients gets a document holder with all final documents including my business card to call even when they are on the trip. Let’s be honest, things happen, and I have been on my own vacation where I had to call 5 different companies to get one answer while standing in the middle of a room while on vacation. There are several hours of my vacation I am not going to get back! So when one of my clients is going through the same thing, I want them to call me so I can take care of it and they can relax.
So what are some of the things that a travel consultant should do for you?
1.Be available – When looking for a travel consultant ask them if they are available after hours or on the weekends. Will they be there for your when you are on the vacation or even after the vacation? Make sure that they are available to help you when you need the help.
2. Friendly – Make sure your travel consultant is friendly from the beginning. It is tough to work with someone who isn’t excited for you to take this trip. They also might not be willing to help you if something goes wrong during the trip.
3.Knowledgeable – When a travel consultant has been there or done their research and they can make the travel planning easy for you, make sure you keep them for life. You want to make sure that you have someone who knows how to weed through all the options and is helps you make the best choice for your vacation.
4.Provide all final documents through the mail – I have talked with many travel consultants who still refuse to mail final documents to their clients. They tell me they are green so they just email everything to their clients. Emails get lost, so I believe is printing everything out for my clients and mailing it in a nice, easy to use packet. And if for some reason you need the documents later, I can always email them.
5. Follows-up – Whether you came back from an amazing vacation or a horrible vacation, your travel consultant should follow-up with you to see how everything went. A follow-up should occur within the first two weeks of you returning. Besides, you spent so much time together planning, why wouldn’t the travel consultant want to know how it went?
A travel consultant should be an advocate for you from the time you are planning your vacation with them until after you return home. Make sure to use these tips in helping you find the best travel consultant for you.
Congratulations to Mary!
She recently earned the distinguished Certified Travel Associate (CTA) designation from the Travel Institute, the travel industry’s oldest education organization. She completed a comprehensive exam-based training program that demonstrates extensive industry knowledge and experience, and she must continue to fulfill stringent education credit requirements each year.
Fill out the form below to get started planning your next European Vacation. Looking for a motor coach tour, self-drive, or private tour, we can easily put together the perfect European vacation for you and your family’s needs.
When you book your vacation with a member of the Life is Better Traveling Team, you are supporting local families and business. Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 4 years, we have become an AMAZING travel agency due to your support!
