Tour operators in the USA

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 435.

Spotlight

1. Retail operators: tour operators who deal directly with the public. They design, operate, advertise, and sell almost exclusively to their own clientele. The retail operator may already have the nucleus of a group and is only advertising to pick up additional business. The retail operator may not have included a commission in the price structure of his tours and cannot afford to accept bookings from other travel agents except when they are falling below their quota and are in danger of canceling their tour or taking a loss on the group. At this point they would welcome bookings from other agents, even though they sacrifice their own commissions on the sale. Approximately 22 percent of all retailers also operate as wholesalers.

2. Wholesale operators: tour operators who do not deal directly with the public. (They are also know as pure wholesalers.) These firms design and operate tours exclusively for sale through travel agents. They do not accept direct bookings and avoid direct sales contacts with the public. A “straight wholesaler” operates the tours at the source – through his own offices or through local contractors. A “retailer/wholesaler” packages and promotes tours through both his own outlets and those of other travel agents.

3. General tour contractors: tour operators who do not package and promote their own tours. They forward reservations to wholesalers or local contractors. The carriers' tour departments, cooperatives, affinity groups, and nonprofit organisations would fall under this category.

4. Local tour contractors:local tour operators who provide the services required by all other categories where they do not have a local office or are not dealing at the source with the hotels. Local contractors secure, book, coordinate, supervise, and handle payments of all services in their territory. Their services are invaluable for an efficient and successful group of FIT operation.

3.Read extracts from the article “Agent Training” and arrange them in the logical order.

a). British Airways has a ten-day regional programme - four days of classes and six days of travel in Great Britain. The Air Traffic Conference, representing domestic airlines, in cooperation with the American Associations also offers travel agent training. Like nearly all such courses, the student must have been employed for at least three months before being eligible for such training. The International Passenger Ship Association provides two separate one-day seminars covering the sale of steamship travel. All these are excellent training for the novice or moderately experienced agent. Community colleges also provide travel agent training, with a variety of results.

b). Agencies that employ inexperienced persons usually assign them to less demanding and responsible tasks, such as filing and general study of references and brochures. Later, the novice begins to handle reservations and domestic ticketing. Many travel agency managers and owners refuse to employ inexperienced personnel, thereby relying on other agencies to do their training for them. One technique for in-house training is to request new employee to appear one-half hour before opening time, a period which is then used for training. Personality, motivation, and basic intelligence are the prime ingredients on which to base training

c). After working for three months, the travel agent becomes eligible for the training offered by the airlines, particularly the large domestic trunk lines. Eastern's school is based in Miami, which is typical, offers a curriculum that covers schedules, the Official Airlines Guide, itineraries, reservations, routings, preparation of tickets, special fares like excursions, construction of fares, and creditcard sales. Free transportation is provided to and from their schools.