Talking training

The expert panel met in the VIP suite of the Dusit Thani Hotel in Dubai, overlooking Sheikh Zayed Road.

When I hear people saying to me: “I’ve been in this job for 18 years, I don’t need training.” I just call it complacency. Unless you learn and develop your people, giving them new things to do in the organisation, how do you give them that sense of belonging?

We need to focus on the fact this is not a cost it’s an investment. Service is a question of choice for the customer, and why would anyone pay service fees to receive bad service?

ATN: Which areas of the industry do you think are the most lacking when it comes to investment in training?

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Mohsin: The problem here is – not the Kanoos, or the Dnatas, I’m not talking about the top five or six agencies, they are groups of companies with a diversified business. I am talking about the mid-level of travel agencies. Their owners’ objectives at the end of the day is often how much money are we making?

Sundar: The need is not in the first tier of travel agents. The top twenty can sing from the same hymn book. But in the second tier there is a full gap. I asked a travel agency manager, “why don’t you send any of your staff for training?” And this is the kind of culture you have here amongst general managers – he replied: “We have staff with 15 years experience, what would they go and learn there?”

If you don’t have the mentality to open your minds to a new way of looking at things we will never progress in this industry.

Annie: At many agencies, travel agents are just ticket issuers. It’s just order taking. Good service for them equates to a person being able to give an error-free ticket to the customer and not have any customer complaints.

Mohsin: There are many factors which are just never considered important factors for a travel consultant when it comes to training. On a daily basis you see customers fighting with staff. You see fares that have got hundreds of restrictions on and the staff do not explain them, so when passengers come back and the ticket is non-refundable they say: “why didn’t you tell me?” These are issues which are very important and need improvement.

Leo: I think its a cultural issue too. Most travel consultants are brought in from the subcontinent, or the Far East. If a local comes in, they can tell him “I’m sorry the flight is full,” but they’ll end up being so intimidated they will sell him a ticket – even knowing he’ll be turned away the airport. It’s a fact; I’ve seen it in my own agency. I’ve also seen British people come in, bullying the Indian counter staff. They back off, or get completely flustered. I’ve spoken to staff time after time after time over the years. I’ve put boards in front of them saying have you sold insurance? Have you offered car hire? But it’s gone out of their heads completely. The only way you get around it is by ensuring your staff are extremely well-trained and have confidence and ability and the knowledge that the management will support them in the face of a customer.

ATN: How does the level of training offered here compare to other markets?

Tricia: It’s a huge contrast to other markets. Coming from the US, it was a shock because there were standards you have to fit or you don’t get that business, you don’t get that license or you don’t get to be at a certain agency. For example AMEX and Carlson only employ agents of a certain level so everyone aspires to it, from the smaller ‘mom and pop’ agencies, because they have the highest standards. The difference in the US is that that there are a lot of travel schools. If you graduate from a travel school you get certification. You get more money, you’re more marketable. If you’re already in the business, the company wants their people to be certified so they push them towards it. It’s like getting an MBA. They provide the means – they pay a percentage or somehow they incentivise you; sometimes they pay upfront and you pay it back once you’ve graduated and are making more money. They went to zero commission 10 years ago. It’s a completely different mindset.

ATN: DTTAG has put travel agent training at the top of its agenda, rolling out free training courses to all members – what has the reaction been to these courses?

Sundar: I think it’s a great start. It’s a question of inspirational efforts. As we speak, today our DTTAG programmes are full. In fact they are over-subscribed, so next year we may have to run the same class twice.

Leo: At first it took time to get people to come on the courses – we had to ring round, persuading people they should come. We still get the occasional ones that don’t turn up on the day but now virtually everyone turns up.

Tricia: I have a lot of people saying when is the next class going to be? They are asking to offer it exclusively to their agents. In the beginning we were wondering how do we find people for this class, and now we are saying: “I’m sorry it’s full!” I hope from this people will realise there really is a need for training. And it could become something on a much wider scale.

Leo: The proof of the pudding is that every course is oversubscribed. As soon as we put the message out we are getting requests from agencies big and small. I am always delighted to see the smaller ones and some of the new ones that come in. It’s first-come-first-served, it’s the only way we can do it to be really fair.

ATN: How keen are agents themselves to enhance their career development? Would they pay for their own training or does the push have to come from management?

Mohsin: The senior management has to get involved into it fully and completely. The management which realises the importance of training, those companies are the ones which have grown in the market because they have invested in their people and their people have paid back. The junior staff and travel consultants who at the front line, they should be trained because they are the face of the travel agencies. But once they get a job and they start getting the salary they think that’s okay. From their side I think they have no interest at all.

Annie: I think that culture needs to change a little bit.

Leo: I would have to disagree. As a tourism board representative for Tourism Ireland [at Gulf Reps] we offer online training and the agents are delighted. We don’t have to go through the managers, we can just go straight to the agents. Some of them even do it at home because the agencies don’t allow them internet access – and I’m talking about some of the biggest travel agencies here.