RSS

Adbrite

Travel Industry Expectations

The people who dream about world travel according to a study are half of all baby boomers or people aged 45 to 59. When it comes to this, people over 55 account for 32 percent of all hotel accommodations purchased in the United States. Considering these people who spend huge sums of money on restaurants, lodging, tours, and sightseeing, they are leisure travelers. It doesn't take a crystal ball to predict the impact of aging but active baby boomers on the travel industry. Taking trends toward early retirement and a healthy economy into consideration, the demographics forecast an unprecedented boom in the travel industry.

For an industry boom, it is nearly always good news for job seekers and career changers. Should you be thinking about work in the travel industry, do explore your options creatively. Here, you should also consider positions in marketing, sales, publishing, and Web page management in addition to being a travel agent. When it comes to this, consider the niches that serve mature travelers such as the group tour industry. According to a group travel manager for a travel agency, a growth area with increasing competition from new companies are packaged tours for seniors.

In this case, you can try job opportunities such as planner, customer service representative, bus driver, tour guide, and marketing specialist. Senior travelers are the target clients when it comes to the trips offered by this travel agency and so mature drivers and escorts are especially appreciated. For their drivers, a lot of these employees are retired postal workers and city bus drivers. Here, existing between the passengers and the drivers is a good bond and this is because they are of the same age and they share the same humor and outlook. Here, many of the jobs in the travel and hospitality industry do not call for specific training but travel agents can benefit a lot from undergoing it.

What is recommended is starting as an outside travel agent before making the leap to running your own agency as mentioned by the vice president of marketing for a retail travel agents association. A commission may be earned from an established agency if you book travel arrangements for family and friends. Here, it will be possible for you to capitalize on the trend toward senior travelers if you consider a special training program, such as the certification as a Specialist in Mature Adult Travel, sponsored by the association of American travel agents.

This lady took early retirement from a US company after 30 years in supervision and customer service after she decided to work for the travel industry. After conducting research, she sent letters and resumes to dozens of tour groups. A response that was not heartening came her way. After a few months, she decided to send another letter, this one to the very top, and she landed a job offer from the vice president in charge of tours.

After this happened, she started as a part time marketing specialist and quickly added the title Tour Escort to her resume and this was five years ago. Now, she is in her 50s but she is still accompanying groups of senior travelers to such destinations as Branson, Missouri, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. What she said was that she gets a lot of satisfaction from seeing people have a good time.

When in Branson, seeing the shows and sometimes getting up close to the stars can be rather exciting. She gets to enjoy other things too like the confidence expressed by groups that request her as the escort on their trips and the friendships she has formed with passengers. She can rely on these advantages to help to balance the hard work inherent in days that can start before dawn and end long after the sun has set.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

0 comments:

Post a Comment