Many employers are willing to train students in the hard skills. For example, if there’s a new system we don’t teach. They are happy to spend time training someone as long as they come with the right attitude. I hate to say it, but the soft skills are almost as important, if not more important, than the hard skills.
One great thing about this industry is the diversity. There are just so many opportunities that it’s almost hard to describe. What we’re finding more and more is a return to a retail agent. We’re finding that people still want that face-to-face communication, and they are willing to pay big bucks for it. The way retail agents now work has also changed. Now, the retail agents are often working from home, they’re marketing, they’re salespeople, they’re customizing packages, so they are almost their own small tour operator.
In the travel industry, there is a labour pool shortage. There are more jobs than qualified candidates. Most sectors of the industry need young talent. They say that in the next five years, more than 200,000 jobs in the industry will go unfilled.
What employers really care about the most is the attitude. Someone who really cares, is passionate about the industry, has great customer service and is great at dealing with people and communication. It’s a reality of recent generations that there’s so much focus on that phone that sometimes it’s almost like face-to-face communication sometimes lacks.
I always say we in the travel speak the language of business. Although it’s a very exciting industry, if you don’t understand commission structure, you don’t understand marketing, sales, some of these really business-heavy skills… loving travel is unfortunately not enough to make you do well in this industry.
What is so great about this industry, and what I love about it, is this: if you really love photography, and that’s your thing, and you know where the best destinations in the world are for photography, you know what time you need to get up to get that perfect shot of the leopard in the tree, then you can commercialize that. If you love a region, so you love South East Asia, and that’s your specialty, you could work in South East Asia, taking people around, or you could sell very well to people who want customized trips to South East Asia. It’s all about specialization. It’s really about finding what you’re passionate about and making that your business.
The more specialized you are in a location, the better off you’ll be. As a guide for G Adventures, I had been going down to Latin America regularly, and had travelled extensively through there, and picked up Spanish, so those were really my selling points. If you don’t have those kinds of selling points, it can be hard to get in the door.
