Leisure to Corporate Training…

Travel agents who decide to become self-employed Travel Counsellors will join coming from either a leisure, wholesale or business travel background. It is up to Travel Counsellors to decide what their customer portfolio can look like. Some may decide to have a leisure only client base or others a corporate only client base and some others my select a hybrid of both.

When Travel Counsellor do their induction training, we cover training modules for both leisure travel and corporate travel. From thereafter it is up to each Travel Counsellor to build their client portfolio and client base.

We give them access to both leisure and business travel marketing templates & tools. Travel Counsellors is BEE accredited. We have a business travel manager who helps Travel Counsellors to win new corporate business.

Mid-March Covid-19 brought travel to a standstill and we entered level 5 of Lockdown. Slowly but surely, we gained small margins of freedom. However, is was only in Lockdown Level 3 when essential business travel could take place. Five airports where opened; Cape Town International Airport, Or Tambo International, Lanseria Airport, Cape Town International Airport and King Shaka International. At an advanced level of Lockdown 3 on 1 July we saw the reopening of seven new airports. The seven new airports included Bram Fischer International Airport, Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport, Pietermaritzburg Airport, Port Elizabeth International Airport, Richards Bay Airport, Skukuza Airport & Upington International Airport.

To help all our Travel Counsellors to be able to take advantage of this slice of the corporate pie we ran a leisure to corporate training programme. This training was done online using Microsoft Teams. The training covered all things corporate travel starting with the very basics and run all the way through how to manage corporate accounts. Daily presentations where held over a week period. Travel Counsellors heard from Ian Keane, our Corporate Travel Manager and from Marc de Jager our Business Development Coach.

This training was geared to help novices to enter the business travel market as well as to help the experienced corporate travel agents to better service their accounts and to help them win new business. They were also reminded about the marketing tools that are available to them as well as the all-important reports that they can offer to their corporate clients...

Covid-19 will change the way travellers travel and it will change the way that we do future business. The demands and expectations from travellers and from TMCs will change accordingly. The importance of offering Duty of Care, Cost Savings Reports and Managing the accounts is ever so important.

Don’t just take our word, lets hear from some of our Travel Counsellors

Helen Shelver said; “I’m grateful for the ongoing support, motivation and training that our Travel Counsellors management is providing for us. I recently finished a 5-day (2 hours a day) Leisure to Corporate Training course and even though my business is already predominantly corporate travel, I found it interesting, well-paced and definitely worth the time. My personal favourite sessions was the session on LinkedIn and Marketing, albeit that I took something away from every session. I would definitely recommend the course to anyone wanting to move from leisure to corporate and as a great refresher course for anyone already in corporate. Thank you Ian and Marc, I will definitely be signing up for any future training sessions you have planned.”

George Vermeulen said: “Just when you think you know a lot about travel, along comes our Head Office team and bursts that bubble. The Leisure to Corporate sessions were very informative and it once again reminds one of where you are now and where you want to be. The input from the rest of the TC’S was very encouraging and their participation informative. After every session (there was 5 sessions) I was left with such a warm and positive attitude. It is an amazing feeling when you interact with our TC family and we can pass that positivity onto each other. Not only did I learn a lot, but my TC family has also moved up a notch closer during this pandemic. Once again thank you so much to our Head Office team for your commitment in ensuring that all us TC’s are kept up to date and also by rubbing your positive attitude off on us.”

Ronel Blom said: "I Enjoyed our leisure to corporate training. One is never to old to learn! Our systems are fantastic for client reports and our business development executives are only just a phone call away to assist and to guide us! #tcrules."

So, while our Travel Counsellors wait for the world of travel to open again – we are equipping them. It is our aim to enable them to offer the very best care to their customers and to ensure that their business travel is seamless.

All this training provided by the company is optional and free of charge. It’s encouraging to see the business travel booking coming in as well as the allowance for small conference groups of up to 50 people. Like you we can’t wait until the entire world is open…

If you would like to find out more about become a Travel Counsellor, then please get in touch we would love to chat to you.