Travel Agents as a career

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  [Deactivated] on 27/08/2014 - 16:09

  As an OZBargainer… I do everything online. No need for boring humans.

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  Evil-Elmo on 27/08/2014 - 16:26

  +4

  Despite voting that I do my research and bookings online, there are many people and companies that still use travel agents and ultimately whether a bunch of OzBargainers use a travel agent or not shouldn't influence you taking a job as one if you're "almost willing to take on any sort of full time job that I'm given". I also believe they have some pretty good travel perks - not sure what these are though.

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  Malarkey on 27/08/2014 - 16:51

  +5

  For every OzBargainer there are a few hundred older or wealthier people who either don't know how or can't be bothered planning and searching out their trip. I think if you were actually really interested in the industry and a good salesman you could do well. However if your not passionate I think you might struggle.

  http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/flight-centre-buys-t…

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  Me88 on 27/08/2014 - 20:07

  +1

  I was in a similar postion - having difficulty finding a job, randomly applied for Flight Centre and got the job. Myself, like you and probably most people here don't see the value in travel agents, but I can assure you many people do. I'll be honest, the money isn't great unless you're making a lot of bookings, but if you like travel, customer service and have an eye for detail it's a fun job. I'm not sure if the job you're talking about is actually Flight Centre, but their training is fantastic, and there are plenty of opportunities.

  Just because you and people on a bargain website (probably not the best place for unbiased answers) don't use travel agents doesn't mean no one does. Flight Centre again announced massive profits today so there is still plenty of business there (again, I have no idea why, but there is). I'd say go for it, any job is better than nothing! Feel free to ask me any other questions you may have :)

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  HAL on 27/08/2014 - 20:21

  A corporate travel agent would still be a viable role in the future, I don't see much of a future in the consumer market here though.

  The growing middle class in Asian markets could be a viable target.

  But hey give it a go, experience in another field won't hurt. I find the best people at work are usually the ones who have a varied history doing many different jobs.

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  blueskyfridays on 27/08/2014 - 21:11

  How old are you? I personally recommend going back and doing study and getting a career with a more stable outlook and $$$. But depends how hungry you are for the $$$. You could work part-time at the job on a short-term basis.

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    scrimshaw on 27/08/2014 - 21:40

    Mid twenties. I have a Bach degree in Hospitality and some other TAFE Hospitality certs in cookery. I actually wanted to be a chef when I was young.

    My work experience so far has involved 1 year in hospitality, another year in retail customer service, quite a bit of voluntary work and some desktop support. As such I've tried lots of things ranging from sales, customer service, hospitality and a bit of I.T.

    As Me88 said I don't see much value in a travel agent, and I'm hesitant to take a job that's easily replaced by a search engine.

    I thought very long and hard about retraining and going to a different field but what's in demand in Australia nowadays? Many graduates struggle to find jobs so I'm a little hesitant about spending another 50k on education and it may not pay off. My interest is in IT but the state of the industry is also pretty bad.

    • 

      airzone on 27/08/2014 - 23:40

      Lol, I'm looking for another IT manager job, and there are normally 300+ applicants for each one that comes up… Yeah, at the moment, IT sucks if you want a new job.

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  blueskyfridays on 27/08/2014 - 21:50

  Well you have until your 30's really so try it all out but try and bed down a job with a career path so that you can use your qualifications and experience to your advantage in the form of pay rises. The only thing to be aware of is that doing a stint in travel and changing back to hospitality or IT means you may not capitalize on pay rises if you had just stayed in the one industry. It's not all about the money, but it definitely helps…

  In terms of further study, hard to say. I know it's hard to branch out of IT support….. Programmers are getting paid good $$$ these days and probably don't need to do uni?

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  Me88 on 27/08/2014 - 22:32

  +1

  How long have you been looking for a job? If only a few weeks, and you're not keen, let it go. If it's been a while, and things aren't looking great I'd still consider taking it.

  As I said, I would never use a travel agent, and honestly through the first few weeks of training I was genuinely worried there would be no customers. I could not have been more wrong - I know of some stores who pretty much have line ups every day.

  In fact, when I first finished school almost 10 years ago I considered a job as a TA, and everyone then was saying it would die out in a few years, but it's still going strong. (Take a look around your local shoppig centres, most I know have at least one, if not 2-4 travel agencies)

  I wouldn't have said this a few months ago, but I really dont think travel agents will die out - demand may decrease as more of the population becomes comfomfortable with online booking, but there are SO MANY young, intelligent people that use travel agents.

  Lots of people don't have time to do it themselves, some people enjoy the experience of sitting down and talking about their holidays, some haven't travelled before and want advice and reassurance, and some don't trust the internet. And while I'm sure most of us on ozbargain are tightass's, so many people don't mind paying a bit extra for service. A LOT of my customers use the internet to research, so it's not that they cant do it, they just prefer to use a real person.

  I guess my point is seriously don't worry about the future of the industy unless you are looking super long term. If you don't want to do it, don't, but if I were in need of a job (which I was - I have a masters degree so I'd much rather a job in that field, but jobs are hard to come by) I'd seriously think about taking it. You can leave at any time, and I'd rather earn money while searching for the right job. Just my two cents :)

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  golfer dad on 28/08/2014 - 10:13

  Hi Scimshaw, for straight forward flights and hotel bookings, I purchase on-line but when a trip involves stopovers or multiple contries/tours, I prefer to book thru Flight Centre for peace of mind. I have used their Price Beat guarantee to ensure I'm getting a good price. As other has said, this is ozbargin so we're not the Flight Centre's targetted customers so you'll probably not going to get favourable opinions to your questions. Look on the ASX and read their Financial results for the past 5 years. They are profitable and increasing year on year so they are financially sound and their business model is not being affected by on-line bookings (they play in that space with their own website). They have also been active in purchasing other travel business (another annoucenment yesterday) to diversify their earnings. Go into different FC stores and you'll usually find lots of customers - paying ones too, not just asking for advice.

  Given your IT interest, have you considered applying for a job at your local Officeworks store? They're happy to hire people (especially students or people who are after part-time work). It's a good company to work based on my own experience where I started part-time at a store, promoted to full-time position before moving to the Head Office in the Buying depart. Was there for more than 10 years before being poached by my ex boss. Much younger management with can-do attitude and with less baggage than Target or Kmart.

  Good luck with your job search

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    Wampus on 28/08/2014 - 12:12

    Haha sounds similar to me, I went from part time in a store to working in finance at head office (this is going back to the 90s) and found them supportive and my job was good if a little boring. Used it as a springboard into purchasing at Apple and compaq. Sorry for hijacking op

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  travelwiz on 12/02/2015 - 14:27

  -1

  by the poll voting it seems many believe incorrectly that cheaper online (not in most cases for international travel).

  We specialise in USA/Canada & also do some NZ ski at Queenstown.

  Don't know how any agent can do everything these days.

  We earn good money & get a few perks. Not free travel, but sometimes get some good discounts, esp on cruises at last minute.

  Airlines/hotels/cruise co. etc. don't want to dump unsold inventory to public at last minute for a number of reasons:

  I) costs money to advertise

  ii) makes people think they can always get last minute deals

  Many principles, would rather have inventory go unused than dump it.

  Everyone in the industry wants earlybirds to be best deal by far. Otherwise if people put off booking, things happen, eg. car breaks down costs $1000's or insurance claim with big excess or 100 other things.

  Book early, get best deal & you're locked in. In unsure about foreign currency, cut some cash when you book.

  • if you pay for hotels etc. early, you can never be hit with currency surcharges.

  Friend booked a NYC hotel when AUD$ was USD$0.90 & only paid 10%. Then AUD4 dropped to USD$0.60 very quickly which is roughly a 50% increase (not 30%). She should haven paid 100% up front, she had the money. She in the end paid 105 upfront then 50% extra on the 905 balance in USD$.