PHOTO: Hands-on experience, such as participating in fam trips, is a hallmark of a good training program.

What do the top travel-agent training programs offer? Which hotel and resort companies make it clear that they value agents and their hard work? In this issue of Agent@Home magazine, we look at what a premier travel-agent training program includes, as well as three examples of exceptional training programs and what they offer.

As you’ll see, it’s about more than getting bombarded with information. Hotel companies that strive to create a great agent training program go above and beyond to ensure that agents’ needs are met. Here is what a top travel agent training program must have, followed by a look at three companies that put agents on a pedestal.

Knowledge

Knowledge is power.

You’ve heard this phrase over and over again. And guess what? There’s a reason why this phrase continues to saturate our culture: It’s the truth. You obviously don’t want to enroll in a training program and hear what you already know. You enroll in a training program for myriad benefits, including the knowledge that you gain.

A worthy training program should expand on the basics, as well as give you exclusive inside knowledge about a hotel company. While you are learning, you should feel like you are in exclusive company.

There’s a reason why a lot of online travel agent programs require a login. It’s not just because you agreed to give some personal information for a mailing list or spent a bit of money. It’s because this is exclusive and valued information that isn’t readily shared with just anyone.

A training program should not only give you extensive knowledge of how to grow your business along with the hotel company; it should also give you insider information that travelers can access only through travel agents.

Personalization/Receptiveness to Agents

Insider knowledge goes hand in hand with personalization. Do you get the sense that you are just another agent going through this company’s proverbial revolving door or do you feel like the company gives you the attention you need to succeed in the industry?

A landmark training program should not only be a source of information but also allow agents some flexibility in working personally with its instructors and/or mentors. For a large hotel company dealing with a lot of agents, this can be difficult to do, but achieving personalization distinguishes the upper echelon of training programs from the rest of the competition.

As an agent, you should be able to ask questions specific to your needs. After all, you are enrolling to learn things that help you personally, not the general masses. Receiving answers to your personal questions will only help both you and the supplier succeed together.

Benefits

Obviously, benefits are very important in a travel agent training program. Many hotel companies offer exclusive perks such as a reward for finishing a program. These could include official certificates to plaster on your website, discounts on accommodations and amenities, free stays, eligibility to enter high-stakes contests, access to preferred partners, advertising opportunities on the company’s website at reduced prices and more.

When you are looking at a training program, you want to ask, “Is this worth my time? What’s in it for me?” It may sound a little selfish, but your time is valuable and you don’t want to spend weeks in a training program that ultimately doesn’t reward you accordingly.

Official Certificates

When you have finished a training program, it’s not enough just to tell your clients you have completed it. It’s pertinent to be able to have some official proof of your hard work and training, such as a distinguished program certificate or a special logo to use in your marketing efforts. Official stamps of completion should be displayed prominently on your websites and social media channels, and it doesn’t hurt to tell your clients and the surrounding world what you learned from your training program. Certificates can give you instant credibility.

Tools

Tools that training programs provide not only make things easier for you as an agent, but they can also boost your influence and range. For example, social media sharing tools are fairly widespread now, and more training programs are offering lessons on how to use social media to essentially cover the globe. However, you need to go beyond learning about social media to actually implementing certain strategies. Think of it like this. If you need to hammer a nail into a piece of plywood, you don’t just need the knowledge of how to do it, you need the tool as well. That’s why it’s important for agents to embrace new tools and new phenomena such as social media. Otherwise, you are playing chess only with pawns, when the entire repertoire of pieces is available.

Simplicity

While training programs may hold a lot of knowledge and information, they also need to be simple and agent-friendly in their design and execution. It doesn’t do you any good if there’s a lot of information there, but it’s hard to process because it’s not outlined and organized well.

A model agent-training program should make it easy for you to follow along and the best training programs combine knowledge with simplistic lessons that are easy to comprehend. There’s nothing worse than a program that uses a bunch of technical jargon that nobody understands.