PHOTO: Switzerland Tourism unveiled a new program for North American agents.

Just like suppliers and hotels and resorts, destinations have recognized and worked to support home-based agents, helping to build their sales potential. We talk to four destination executives from around the world to find out how they support the home-based travel agent community.

Africa

South Africa’s tourism industry is one of the most remarkable success stories ever to be seen in tourism. It’s unlikely that any other country in the world has seen as much growth in its tourism during that 20-year period – and part of that success was due to the home-based travel agent.

According to Sthu Zungu, president of South African Tourism North America, “In 1994, the year we had our first democratic elections, South Africa welcomed 74,743 visitors from the U.S. South Africa did not differentiate between tourists and visitors back then. In 2012, we welcomed close to 327,000 tourists, representing a growth of 337 percent in less than 20 years.” In 2013, South Africa’s U.S. visitor numbers were 5.1 percent more than the previous year.

But it did not happen by itself. It was a result of a highly organized and targeted campaign by South African Tourism, the tourism-promoting division of the national government. South African Tourism built its tourism through the professional network of wholesale tour operators and retail travel agents. SAT works diligently to cultivate relationships with the industry. It maintains close relationships with major consortia such as Virtuoso, Signature, American Marketing Group, Ensemble and American Express.

One of the most important things SAT does for the trade is to provide education on South Africa. Through its FUNDI specialist program, it provides education via the Internet, which is perfectly suited to any agent with Internet access in either a home or brick-and-mortar office. SAT trains about 6,000 agents a year through its FUNDI program. The training is often done face-to-face or by webinars. The website for the FUNDI program is at www.southafrica.net/za/en/landing/fundi-home/

“Fundi” is a Zulu word meaning specialist or learner. Agents who complete the course can appear on the SAT website (www.southafrica.net) in a listing of South Africa specialist travel agents under the heading “Do you need a travel specialist?” The system will link the consumer and agent together based on geographic proximity. The course provides access to an extensive library of local videos, downloadable brochures, maps, airline information and a webinar addressing the variety of experiences available in South Africa.

Australia

“At Tourism Australia, we view agents as critical partners as we strive to achieve our 2020 targets,” says Jane Whitehall, vice president, the Americas at Tourism Australia. “We’ve set a target to grow U.S. visitor expenditure from $2.58 billion currently to between $4.5 billion and $5.5 billion by 2020. To do this, we need to grow the number of visitors, how much they spend in Australia and encourage them to explore different parts of the country.”

That’s where agents are important, says Whitehall. “We know consumers are increasingly savvy about travel and have more information and options at their fingertips than ever before. We also know Australia consistently ranks at the top of Americans’ dream lists of vacation destinations and we often hear people say they want to go ‘someday.’”

But, according to Whitehall, the choices can seem overwhelming and many consumers need help to understand how to make the most of their limited vacation time. Agents are the ones who know how to design a vacation that fits clients’ personal tastes, schedules and budgets, and the best travel professionals can arrange these authentic experiences and value-adds.

The Aussie Specialist Program includes a flexible online training course, which is perfect for at-home agents because they can undertake the training to fit their schedules. At-home agents can enjoy other benefits, including access to deals through our travel club, webinars and e-newsletters, and a range of customizable marketing tools and assets to help promote and sell Australia more effectively.

“Within the network of Aussie Specialists we have a premium tier known as Premier Aussie Specialists,” says Whitehall. “This group is reviewed annually and includes those agents who meet select criteria, such as most sales to Australia, commitment to ongoing training and promotion of the destination. The Premier Aussie Specialist designation is a great marketing advantage because customers can be confident they are talking to the best agents selling Australia. We also provide extra benefits to these agents, including agent profile features on Australia.com, referrals from relevant marketing activities and more. For example, we recently ran a major campaign with Virgin Australia and Delta promoting 52 signature week-long itineraries and referred leads to Premier Aussie Specialists.”

Europe

One reason why Switzerland was listed as the world’s most competitive travel destination in the World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013 is that it ranked first for excellent staff. Switzerland wants you to join in the excellence. Last August, Switzerland Tourism unveiled a new e-learning program for North American agents. The program was created in collaboration with Travel Agent Academy (a division of Travalliance), and is called the Switzerland Specialist Gold-Level and Platinum-Level. Travel agents can become Certified Switzerland Advisors or Certified Switzerland Specialists upon graduation.

“Home-based agents are very important to our efforts in North America, in fact, they’re more important than ever,” says Pascal Prinz, account manager, Trade Relations East Coast at Toursim Switzerland. “That’s why we have gone to great lengths to create tools that will help them get all that they need to know to sell Switzerland. Training and education of these agents is vital to our strategy. We began offering regular webinars and we have seen the attendance increase with each new session.

“We are very excited about the e-learning program that we recently added to our tools. It gives agents what they need to effectively sell the country. The course gives them enough but not too much because we want to respect their time. We are constantly working on streamlining the program. Those efforts have helped us to keep it at just three hours long. By streamlining we can educate the agents but also respect the fact they are very busy. We never want to waste any of the agents’ time.

“Right now we have about 400 Swiss Advisors and between two and 3,000 Swiss Specialists. We keep them up-to-date with our website, our newsletters, the webinars and the e-learning course. I also travel around to give seminars on selling Switzerland in person. We want [agents] to know how important they are to us. We also want them to know that we are constantly at work trying to improve these tools and we are grateful that we have received such positive feedback from them.”

Graduates of the e-learning course receive certificates as “Switzerland Advisors” upon graduation and can continue their training from there by enrolling in the Switzerland Specialist program, Platinum level, and become a “Certified Switzerland Specialist.” That distinction comes with a leads program on Switzerland Tourism’s website www.myswitzerland.com; eligibility for fam trips to Switzerland; invitations to exclusive Swiss events in cities all over North America and three CEU credits from The Travel Institute and nine credits from the Canadian Institute of Travel Counselors.

Latin America

PHOTO: Ecuador launched the “All You Need is Ecuador” campaign.

Ecuador’s Ministry of Tourism has created a comprehensive program to educate and support home-based travel agents says Verónica Sevilla, campaign coordinator for the ministry’s “All You Need Is Ecuador” program.

“The ‘All You Need Is Ecuador’ campaign is a special trade campaign that includes several editorial and digital communication tools such as a dedicated All You Need Is Ecuador magazine, a newsletter and the allyouneedisecuador.travel/trade website with updated data about tourism,” she says. Sevilla notes that the program also includes a “massive social media outreach.”

Says Sevilla, “The All You Need Is Ecuador magazine has specialized information relevant for travel agents and tour operators, and tools to be able to sell Ecuador to their clients.” She adds that the campaign “is meant to support home-based travel agencies and provide new and creative ways to promote Ecuador now as well as in the future.”

The educational tools include a detachable Travel Planner featuring top destinations, descriptions of Ecuador’s “four worlds,” maps, and “articles that uncover all that Ecuador offers,” Sevilla says. The magazine will be distributed to 8,000 travel agents and tour operators in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

“The newsletter will be delivered digitally every two weeks and is available in five languages: Spanish, English, French, Portuguese and German. The campaign also offers online webinars every two months that feature the top destinations in Ecuador so that the home-based agent can know how to best sell the product,” she says.

Sevilla mentions that the biggest challenge with working with home-based travel agents is “getting the information about the destination delivered to every agent.” Nevertheless she says home-based agents are boosting their sales of Ecuador travel “because home-based agents are more interested in selling special destinations like Ecuador to their clients.”

Sevilla says that home-based agents “need more information readily accessible at their desks, which is what this campaign is all about. They also need to attend seminars such as our online webinars to get a more in-depth background on Ecuador’s products.”

David Cogswell, Brian Major and James Ruggia contributed to this article.