Self Study Module

1. Self Study Module • Travel Agent Skills

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3. Welcome Welcome to the travel industry and welcome to The Global Travel Group! At The Global Travel Group our aim is to give you all the help and support you need to ensure a smooth transition from the planning stage of your business right through to your launch and beyond. Our L&D team share this aim and very much look forward to facilitating your learning. If you are already a seasoned travel agent you will know just how rewarding the job can be, however if you haven’t worked in this sector before it may take a little while to get used to the industry’s terminology, jargon, processes and systems. It is true to say that the amount of information you will need to absorb is vast. Looking at how your industry works, the array of products and suppliers, and which companies feature which destinations in itself is quite a task. However, when you factor in learning airport and airline codes, differing time zones, travel geography and resort information, it can all seem a bit daunting... This is where your self study module will help! This module has been designed as pre-training preparation, not only to teach you the basics you will need in order to start operating confidently as a travel agent, but to give you the foundation required to ready you for one of our travel induction courses. By completing this pack ahead of your course you will be able to ‘hit the ground running’ and you will find the course material much easier to absorb. Your Business Development Manager will discuss your Self Study Module prior to training and they will offer guidance and support in completing it where necessary. So what are you waiting for......dive straight in and let’s get started! Completing this Module 3

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5. So how does it work? • Knowledge of world time zones is imperative when dealing with customer’s flights and flight timings, especially when explaining why a flight returning from The Netherlands seems to take only 15 minutes! • Below is a diagram of an international time calculator. After looking at the details complete the exercise on the following page. GMT or Greenwich Mean Time is indicated with a ‘0’ (in the olive green square) at the bottom of the map. Greenwich is indicated with a white dot. • The numbers shown in each time zone (left or right) of GMT ‘0’ indicate the number of hours you should add or subtract to find the current time in the area in question. • As an example, note that California, on the western coast of the United States, is indicated as being -8 hours of GMT. • Some area’s time zones deviate from the norm. Note from the map that India is GMT +5½, while Myanmar (Burma) is +6½, Iran is +4½, Iraq is +3½, Nepal is +5¾ and Central Australia is +9½. The Canadian province of Newfoundland is GMT -3½, and some smaller islands in French Polynesia are -9½, while the Pitcairn Islands are GMT -8½. pink area = GMT – 6 green area = GMT + 1 5

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7. The travel industry works exclusively on the ‘24 hour clock’ system, in which the 24 hours of the day are numbered from 1 to 24 thus taking away the need to use am or pm. The first 12 hours of the day are numbered from 1 to 12, but 1pm in the afternoon is referred to as 13:00hrs, 2 is 14:00hrs, and so on until midnight which is either 24:00hrs or 00:00hrs. In the travel industry, both 00:00 and 24:00 are avoided as it would be difficult to know whether 00:00 on Monday actually meant Monday night or Monday morning potentially leading to customers missing flights etc. So, although it is theoretically possible to have a time of 24:00, is it very unlikely that you will ever see it. To limit confusion, flight timings are usually shown as 23:59hrs or 00:01hrs. To convert a ‘PM’ time in 12 hour clock to 24 hour clock just add 12 to the time, or to covert back from 24 to 12 hour clock, subtract 12 from the number greater than 12. To easily convert between the 24 and 12 hour time systems you can utilise any or all of these diagrams too: 7

8. The phonetic alphabet is widely used in the travel industry to ensure the correct spelling of names and other details taken or given when communicating with customers and suppliers, especially by telephone. It is essential that passenger titles, initials and surnames are spelt correctly as spelling errors on tickets may prevent a customer from travelling, or at the least cost a substantial amount of money to put right. On this page is the standard phonetic alphabet, and using it is very simply a case of spelling out a word using other words instead of a just a letter, so spelling out the surname Smith in phonetics would go like this : Sierra,Mike, India,Tango,Hotel. Take time to familiarise yourself with it and practice using it, then complete the task across the page. We will be using the phonetic alphabet extensively during your training course. 8

9. An IATA airport code is a three-letter alphabetical code designating airports around the world. These codes are defined by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). We will look at IATA in more detail a little later in this module. • The codes are unique and there are a possible 17,576 combinations with approximately 9,000 currently in use around the world. • The characters prominently displayed on baggage tags attached at airport check-in desks are an example of the way these codes are used. • From ABE (Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton, Pennsylvania) to ZRH (Zurich, Switzerland), airports around the world are universally known by a unique three-letter code: the "Location Identifier" in aviation jargon. It's obviously much easier for pilots, air traffic controllers, travel agents, frequent flyers, computers and baggage handlers to say and write ORD rather than O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois—but how did this practice start, and why are some airport codes easy to understand (ABE and ZRH) while others seem to make absolutely no sense (ORD)? • When the Wright brothers first took to the air in 1903, there was no need to code airports since an airport was literally any convenient field. • Towns with weather stations already has 2 letter weather station codes which were initially used, however, as airline services expanded in the 1930's, towns without weather station codes needed identification. The three-letter system was born, giving a seemingly endless 17,576 different combinations. To ease the transition, existing airports placed an X after the weather station code. The Los Angeles tag became LAX, Portland became PDX, Phoenix became PHX and so on. • Incidentally at the historic sand dune in Kitty Hawk where the first flight occurred, the U.S. National Parks Service maintains a tiny airstrip called FFA—First Flight Airport. • For a full explanation of how IATA codes are created and allocated you may wish to visit www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html • There are a number of excellent website reference tools which can be used for both decoding and encoding, here are a few you may wish to try:- • www.world-airport-codes.com • www.postmodern.com/~mcb/misc/code.html • www.hplgroup.com/lettercode.html • Use a combination of the websites shown here and holiday brochures to complete the tasks on the following pages. 9

10. It is imperative that before attending training, you familiarise yourself with UK departure airport codes, and particularly the codes for the most popular holiday destinations. Not only will this make your time during training much easier, but you will also need these codes on a daily basis in your working environment. The earlier you start to learn them the better! Please complete the following task by writing the airport/city name next to the 3 letter code given and give the nearest alternative. 10

11. Having looked at UK airport codes on the previous page our next task is holiday destination and popular airport codes, both short and long haul. We have concentrated on the biggest selling holiday hotspots and the most popular flight destinations for UK travellers. . 11

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13. All airlines, whether charter, scheduled or no frills (easyjet for example) will have an airline prefix to identify their flights. British Airways prefix is BA, American Airlines prefix is AA, but they are not always so straightforward and logical. For instance Jet2 has LS as its prefix. As with most information used on a daily basis, there are resources that can be used, however it is essential that you have a working knowledge of at least the most popular airline codes as the airlines used by tour operators are generally only identifiable by these. You may have previously seen examples of this on your own e-ticket or itinerary which often shows just a flight number – BA139 – this is the airline prefix followed by the flight service number. Complete this task filling in the blank spaces. Complete either the airline code or the airline name, whichever information is missing. When using www.airlinecodes.co.uk, you are looking for IATA codes not ICAO codes – ICAO codes are not used by travel agents or our suppliers. 13

14. The Job 14

15. The Travel Industry - from a Travel Agent’s perspective As a UK based travel agent and member of The Global Travel Group you are able to sell a massive array of products to your customers. Many of the products that you sell will be from companies classified as tour operators (we sometimes refer to these as suppliers). Many tour operators in the UK are household names such as Virgin Holidays, Thomson and Thomas Cook. At the time of publication Global deal with in excess of 160 tour operators and suppliers – some of which have up to thirty brochures or programmes from which to choose your customer’s travel arrangements. If we take Thomas Cook as an example, they offer beach holidays, skiing holidays, long haul, short haul, city breaks among many others. In order for you to be able to work with any of these companies Global will have negotiated commercial terms with them. These commercial terms cover many things, however the two key areas for our members are the rates of commission you will be paid for selling these products and having the ability to make bookings first then pay later. To prove that you are a bona fide licensed travel agent you will be issued with a trade or licence number by Global. You will need to quote this number to make a booking with a tour operator/supplier or alternatively you will enter your licence number into the supplier’s reservation system along with a corresponding password in order to make bookings with them. Incidentally, although neither The Global Travel Group nor your individual agency hold ABTA membership, the licence or trade number mentioned above is often referred to as an ABTA number. This is simply an historic and generic term and does not in any way imply that your agency or The Global Travel Group hold ABTA membership – we do not! 15

16. So how does it work? Regardless of what it is your customer wishes to buy from you or indeed what you finally sell to them, the booking ‘flow’ is generally the same. In the diagram below you will see the order in which this happens and although the products/suppliers (search) will often differ, the rest of the process essentially follows the same pattern. Your industry knowledge, product knowledge and travel geography knowledge come together at the ‘Search’ stage of the booking process enabling you to find your customer the perfect match for their needs. 16

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20. The Products 20

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30. The Places 30

31. 10 EUROPE 1 9 5 2 7 6 3 4 8 31

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38. The Basics 38

39. What’s Included in a Package Holiday? 39

40. Accommodation Types 40

41. Room Types 41

42. Meal/Board Basis’ 42

43. Package Holidays... Passenger Types 43

44. Package Holidays... Booking Conditions 44

45. Package Holidays...Miscellaneous Information 45

46. Matching Customers Needs The Roberts family consists of John and his wife Matilda and their two children, Amy aged 10 and Daniel aged 8. They wish to travel in May to one of the Balearic Islands. They can fly from Manchester or Liverpool and wish to be away for 14 nights. They want you to find them a self catering apartment preferably with two bedrooms but they will take one bedroom if it’s much cheaper, and a minimum of three stars (go by the tour operator’s rating). Mrs Roberts prefers a day flight but does not mind what day of the week they travel. 46

47. Matching Customers Needs Your customers are a young couple Lisa and Paul who are going on their first holiday together. They want to go to a Greek Island and would prefer to be close to a resort centre with a choice of restaurants for their evening meals. They are not ones for nightclubs or partying and like the idea of sampling un-commercialised Greek island life. In the day they want to be able to walk to a beach. They want 2 weeks in June. Lisa and Paul don’t have a preference of travel day, but they are looking for the most cost effective holiday so do not wish to pay lots of supplements. They can travel from any airport in the South East of England. 47

48. Matching Customers Needs Mary Dean would like to take her husband Erik to Cyprus this August for one week. They went there 30 years ago and want to return to the same resort; Paphos. She is unsure of what day the flights operate but would prefer to travel if possible on a week day. She would prefer a five star hotel and wishes to have breakfast and evening meal included at the hotel. They must fly from Manchester. 48