Training

Selling smart

More and more tour operators are now relying on a high code of staff intellect to sell destinations, thanks to stiffer competition, more travellers and even more diverse destinations. Express TravelWorld finds out how staff can be better equipped to clinch deals

Choices, choices, choices! Selling destinations to travellers has never been such a challenge. The opening up of the tourism sector offers travellers with mind-boggling choices and although it is a blessing for the consumer, it has made the tour operator's job that much more difficult. There are a million packages for every destination and the tour operator has to evolve fresh options with every request, with the best rates for airlines, hotels, car rentals, sightseeing, etc, while looking at their profit margins and commission gains.

In such a scenario, what they need is brushing up of their selling skills. World over and in India too, tour operators are trying to cook up innovative ways to boost their staff to get maximum returns.

Staff training

The most important factor is destination knowledge. Tour operators need to thoroughly know the destination they are trying to sell. They also need to be aware of the current trends in the destination, become familiar with countries, major cities and tourist attractions.

Yogesh Diman, destination specialist at Bangalore-based Sim-Ventura Tours Pvt Ltd, says, "The staff must also understand the needs and expectations of clients." And to know that, they must first be travellers, which is not always the case. Most travel agents tend to train their staff with whatever literature is available. "This approach hardly serves the purpose. What will work best for them is to have travelled to the destination and experienced it first-hand. Nothing works better," he says.

But most agents find it difficult to fund such trips, which is why they tend to wait for FAM trips to come their way. But there are not many countries or cities that promote their destination through FAM trips. Vaibhav Vidyarthi, HOD (Travel & Tourism), Swami Vivekananda Institute of Travel & Tourism Management, Secunderabad, says, "Only few destinations arrange for FAM tours, which results in the agent selling only one particular destination. But they must necessarily touch base with most of the 'hot' destinations and try to organise trips for their staff." For tour operators, it is eventually the measurable market share, result-oriented investment and customer relationship management that matters. What they need is an informed destination specialist who not only knows everything about the product, but also how to sell it the best way they can. Building a relationship with the travel professional is what is important. Rajanarayana Gowda, proprietor of Travel-Itch (P) Ltd, Bangalore, says, "For this, the staff need to undergo a thorough contemporary training. In India, training in travel and tourism institutes is evolving but still has a long way to go. "

Training has to be concentrated on world geography through individual research, lectures and audio-visual presentations. But this is not enough; staff must also be trained about different cultural influences such as history, food, religion and language. "Unfortunately," says Vidyarthi. "There is a lack of stress on such aspects in the country."

Unique models

Diman feels that training the staff is a better bet than training students from the travel and tourism management courses. "Travel and tourism courses in the country are yet to evolve. Though students from training institutes are preferred, we have to ask them to open up their minds as they come with a rigid set of rules taught to them during their course."

Using this as a cue, TravelPort operates on a unique franchise model. According to K Venkatesh, CEO, TravelPort, "We involve entrepreneurs who are already in some kind of business but want to get into something new. We train them, groom them and then make them our partners. Our focus is to increase our network and have maximum number of franchisees." The company conducts training sessions once every two months for these franchisees. "We have a franchisee manager who keeps track of each of our franchisee's performance. The entire process is target-oriented and it is quite fruitful," he says.

While most travel agents in the country go for Preferred Sales Agents (PSAs), TravelPort chooses to have exclusive arrangements. "We do not mind taking in travel agents as our franchisees, but there is less flexibility with them as they want to do things their way. But we get a lot of flexibility with entrepreneurs that we groom; we can mould them the way we want," explains Venkatesh.

Strategic skills

Starting from the basics like prospecting, opening a call and effective listening, tour operator staff have to work on techniques like building a rapport with customers, selling features of the destination and should even know how the competition works. "They must then upgrade to working effectively at tradeshows, partner with hotels and convention centers, to prospect on the Internet, and advance or close a sales call," says Gowda.

Giving an example of selling destinations in Europe, K Chalapathi, manager, World-O-Main Enterprises, Mangalore, says, "Extensive market research shows that many travellers to Europe are motivated by the desire to meet the local people and participate in their local cultural events, from sampling local gastronomy to viewing priceless art and historic architecture. Such clients take longer, more expensive trips that generate higher commissions. We can capture a piece of that business by structuring our agency to specialise in leisure trips to Europe. For this, the staff has to learn the European culture and improve their heritage IQ, know what makes each country unique, know how to expand niche market sales, realise as to what motivates the traveller to explore Europe and also give practical tips to sell the European experience more effectively." As Diman adds, "Better itinerary planning skills and knowledge means better customer satisfaction."