Becoming a corporate travel agent can seem daunting, but with the right strategy, it’s achievable. At TRAVELS.EDU.VN, we help aspiring travel professionals navigate this rewarding career path. Let’s explore proven methods to help you become a successful corporate travel advisor and capitalize on the lucrative opportunities in the industry.
1. Understanding the Appeal of Corporate Travel Agent Careers
The corporate travel sector attracts many aspiring travel professionals, primarily due to its earning potential. Corporate travel agents often command higher incomes than those focused on leisure travel, driven by the consistent demand for their specialized services and the willingness of corporate clients to pay for expertise and efficiency.
1.1. Revenue and Compensation in Corporate Travel
According to industry data, corporate travel advisors frequently earn more than their counterparts in leisure travel. This income disparity is largely attributed to the widespread acceptance of service fees within the corporate travel sphere.
For years, statistics have shown corporate advisors consistently outperforming leisure advisors in income generation. The corporate travel market has fully embraced service fees, understanding them as a standard cost of doing business. This acceptance significantly boosts the earning potential for corporate travel agents, establishing a solid financial foundation for success.
1.2. The Role of Service Fees
Service fees are integral to the corporate travel agent model. Clients understand that these fees cover the expertise, time, and resources required to manage complex travel arrangements efficiently.
Mike Edic, a seasoned corporate travel agent with over two decades of experience, emphasizes that service fees are a fundamental aspect of corporate travel culture. Corporate clients recognize them as a necessary expense for the comprehensive travel solutions they receive.
Corporate Travel Agent Earning Potential
2. Overcoming the Catch-22: Experience and Entry
One of the primary obstacles in entering corporate travel is the paradox of needing experience to secure an entry-level position, yet being unable to gain that experience without initial employment.
2.1. Addressing the Experience Gap
While no specific “corporate travel agent school” exists, aspiring agents can employ several strategies to bridge the experience gap and position themselves for success. Key tactics include mastering Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and seeking out entry-level roles that provide foundational skills.
Although the path to a corporate travel career isn’t always straightforward, various strategies can help you get your foot in the door. Let’s explore some proven methods to help you become a corporate travel agent and capitalize on the opportunities in this exciting industry.
3. Mastering GDS: A Crucial Skill
Proficiency in a Global Distribution System (GDS) is often a prerequisite for corporate travel positions. These systems are used to manage bookings, reservations, and other essential travel-related tasks.
3.1. Importance of GDS Knowledge
GDS expertise not only makes you a more competitive candidate but also equips you with the practical skills needed to perform daily tasks efficiently. While mastering a GDS can take time and dedication, it’s a worthwhile investment in your career.
Learning how to use a GDS, while challenging, is essential for corporate travel agents. While it can take years to master, it’s an achievable goal.
3.2. GDS Training Programs
Investing in GDS training is a strategic move that can significantly enhance your job prospects. Even if a training program doesn’t guarantee immediate employment, it provides you with the skills employers seek. Continuous practice is essential to maintain fluency in GDS after completing a training program.
Several GDS training programs are available to help you acquire the necessary skills. However, these programs don’t necessarily guarantee a corporate travel job.
3.2.1. IATA (International Air Transport Association)
IATA offers GDS training in Amadeus, Galileo, and Sabre. They provide courses for both beginners and advanced users, ensuring a comprehensive learning experience.
Beginning and Fundamental Courses:
IATA, the industry association for airlines, offers a variety of training opportunities. Additionally, Travel Leaders of Tomorrow provides valuable training modules.
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IATA Courses on GDSs, Ticketing, and Fares
- Cost: Varies
- These courses cover essential topics like GDS operation, airline pricing, and ticketing procedures.
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IATA Courses on Travel and Tourism
- Cost: Varies
- These courses delve into crucial components such as Billing Settlement Plans (BSPs), New Distribution Capability (NDC), and geography.
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Travel Leaders of Tomorrow (TLOT) Business Travel Course
- Cost: $475 per module (3 modules)
- This six-week virtual program is ideal for training new advisors in corporate travel fundamentals, including exchanges, fare basis rules, and Passenger Name Records (PNRs).
3.2.2. Viasync’s GDS Trainings
Viasync offers online courses for Apollo, Galileo, Sabre, and Worldspan. These courses include emulators that allow you to practice in a GDS environment without using live inventory.
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Viasync’s GDS Trainings for Apollo, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan
- Cost: $139-$399 per module
- The courses are metered and based on usage hours, offering flexibility for different learning styles. They also offer an all-access unmetered subscription for brick-and-mortar institutions.
3.2.3. Travel Institute Sabre Training
The Travel Institute offers a self-paced Sabre training course that includes 170 lessons covering reservations, pricing, inventory, fares, rules, and invoice and itinerary planning.
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Travel Institute Sabre Training
- Cost: $149
- This course is valid for one year after purchase, providing ample time to complete the lessons.
3.2.4. Training by the GDS Providers
The GDS providers themselves offer training, but access usually requires an agency account with a pseudo city code (PCC) or agency ID number. This can be a barrier for individual learners.
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Sabre Personal Trainer
- Cost: Unknown
- Accessible via Agency eServices, this module offers comprehensive Sabre training.
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Travelport E-learning (Travelport+ combines Apollo, Galileo, Worldspan)
- Cost: Unknown
- Available through Travelport’s customer portal, this e-learning platform covers all GDS systems under Travelport’s umbrella.
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Amadeus Learning Universe
- Cost: Unknown
- Accessible via the Amadeus Service Hub, this platform offers e-learning opportunities, instructor-led courses, and learning goal tracking.
GDS Training Interface
4. Exploring Entry-Level Roles with GDS Training
Another effective strategy is to pursue entry-level positions that provide GDS training. These roles might include working in an airline’s reservation center or as a travel-booking call center agent.
4.1. Leveraging Non-Travel Agent Jobs
These roles offer valuable hands-on experience with GDS systems and provide a solid foundation for a career in corporate travel. Mike Edic began his career by working for an airline, where he gained experience with multiple GDS systems.
Jobs such as working in an airline’s reservation center, trying your hand as a travel-booking call center, an entry-level airline reservation agent, or getting a position at a corporate agency as an admin or support staff.
4.2. Airline and Reservation Center Opportunities
Mike Edic gained significant expertise by working for an airline and learning various GDS systems. This experience allowed him to understand the intricacies of airline operations and GDS entries.
Entry-level GDS jobs that are willing to provide on-the-job training are a great in-road to building the experience you need to become a corporate travel agent.
4.3. Benefits of Part-Time Roles
A short-term, part-time job can be similar to the time and energy it takes to complete a training program. Working for the airlines includes travel perks.
These roles not only provide essential skills but also offer insights into different aspects of the travel industry. They allow you to determine if corporate travel aligns with your career aspirations. Plus, you might save a few bucks on a GDS training program and get a first hand look at a different faction of the travel industry!
5. Partnering with a Host Agency
Joining a host agency can provide aspiring corporate travel agents with the resources and support they need to succeed. Some host agencies offer GDS training or are willing to guide agents who have corporate client connections.
5.1. How Host Agencies Can Help
Even if a host agency doesn’t offer formal GDS training, they might be willing to provide guidance, especially if you already have corporate client connections. Choose a host agency that supports corporate travel and offers the GDS you’re looking for. Make sure you let hosts know up front that you’re interested in how they support your career trajectory as a corporate travel agent.
If you want a host that will support corporate travel, you’ll want to find a host agency that offers GDS. Use our host agency list filters to find a host agency that offers the GDS you’re looking for.
6. Insights from Seasoned Corporate Travel Agents
Learning from experienced professionals is invaluable. To provide you with practical insights, we interviewed several corporate travel agents about their career paths and advice for newcomers.
6.1. Mike Edic: President/Owner of Pioneer Travel
Mike Edic shares his journey into corporate travel, emphasizing the benefits of working as a home-based agent and the challenges of starting without an established clientele.
Mike Edic, owner of Pioneer Travel
6.1.1. How He Started
“I’ve been a corporate travel agent for 23 years. I worked for Carlson for 15 years. Way back in the dark ages, I did go to travel agency school. When I graduated from school, I worked for the airline for 5 years. That tied me into the corporate side of things.”
6.1.2. Benefits of Home-Based Work
“Working from home, I’m able to make decisions for clients. With big agencies, they don’t get that one-on-one. A lot of my clients I’ve become friends with. You’ve got that personal service. I know what they want, where they want to stay. A smaller agency can give you that one-on-one service.”
6.1.3. Challenges of Starting Out
“I had [my] corporate clients built in [when I started]. With a new corporate agent who doesn’t have that built in clientele, it takes awhile because they don’t know who you are. Big corporations are afraid to start with smaller agencies. I have a chief support system behind me, and he offers us reporting for our tickets, last minute bookings, he can tell us where our travelers are. Basically, they knew what I could offer them. That’s hard starting out because nobody knows who you are.”
6.1.4. Tips for New Agents
“Put yourself in the client’s shoes and treat them the way you’d want to be treated if you were in their shoes. Make sure that the travel part of things will not stress them out. The one thing they don’t have to worry about is their travel. Business travelers are people too and they want to be treated with respect, not just a number . . . if the traveler is successful, then I’m successful. If they’re not, then I’m not doing my job.”
6.2. Terri Coon: Owner of Hyland Travel
Terri Coon discusses her career path, the traits of an ideal corporate client, and the differences between booking leisure and corporate travel.
GDS Training Interface
6.2.1. Her Start in Corporate Travel
“I moved back to Denver and lived with my sister for a little while and was pounding the pavement looking for a job. I got a job working for an after-hours travel service. It was called 4/24. At 4/24 we didn’t deal with any leisure people at all. It was just corporate travelers calling in after hours. It was all corporate travel that we dealt with. In 5 years I moved up to operations manager. At one point while I was working there, I had to learn a total of 7 GDS’s. They put you through 2 weeks of training and that was like your introduction on all the GDSs.”
6.2.2. Ideal Corporate Clients
“A company that has and adheres to a travel policy. A company that has up to 2,000 employees total (not all of them are going to travel, obviously). Small companies. I have one big account out in MD. They have another office in MI and in Longmont, CO. and I do their travel for them. I did not want to put all my eggs in one basket but that’s how it happened. I have a few others too. In the last 6 months, I’ve been getting a lot of business for leisure travel. It’s nice to have a corporate client that understands how a travel management company can help them. They need to understand where I can help them and need to want to understand too. And I’ve found that companies typically tend to put travel on the back burner because they don’t understand it.”
6.2.3. Leisure vs. Corporate Booking
“I find that leisure agents can’t stand doing corporate travel and corporate agents can’t stand doing leisure travel. Corporate is cut and dry, and you’re not playing with people’s personal money. I can book a trip in 60 sec. But if you’re booking someone’s personal trip it can take hours of research. I’m working on one (around the world trip) right now where the guy is going from Boston to France to Switzerland . . . and I’ve used different vendors for each section of the trip. It’s been fun working on it”
6.2.4. Qualities to Seek in a Host Agency
“Three words. Support, support, support. I’ve had two host agencies. [With my first host agency] I was one of the few that did corporate travel and the itineraries that I would send out to my clients looked like a 5th grader typed them up. I needed some more technology. I started looking around at other hosts and then I saw Andavo and met with Kiersten and looked at their website and it was everything I wanted and more. Sometimes I feel like the red headed stepchild, and not just with my host but with all of travel. Because ASTA, they cater to leisure agents. NACTA, they cater to leisure agents too. So I kind of pick and choose webinars and stuff like that . . . I think it would be so, so hard for a new agent to get into corporate travel. It’s so limited out there for training or anything.”
6.3. Torey Edgcomb: Luxury Travel Advisor at Casto Travel
Torey Edgcomb shares her experience in attracting corporate clients as a primarily leisure agent, the learning curve involved, and the educational resources that benefited her.
Torey Edgcomb, Casto Travel
6.3.1. Attracting Corporate Clients
“I really started getting into doing corporate—and it’s only a small portion of my business right now—but for smaller [corporate] accounts that did not want to sign a formal contract, and, you know, have a whole pod of agents assigned to them, Casto would refer them over to our leisure department. The leisure agents have the choice to work exclusively with the smaller corporate accounts either with themselves or a few other people. And so I got a few clients that way and also from an independent contractor colleague who retired. She did some small corporate accounts and she passed them on to me. That was the two original ways. Additionally, I spent a lot of time working with people who are executives or maybe consultants who really work for themselves or maybe have a few employees, I would do their leisure travel. As we got to know each other, I realized they were doing a lot of corporate or even incentive group travel as well. I said I’d be happy to help with that because they were seeing the benefits of working with me via leisure travel. So I got into it that way as well.”
6.3.2. The Learning Curve
“For every company [the approval process] is different and sometimes they haven’t worked with a travel agent before. So at the beginning it was a learning process on explaining up front how it worked. An employee will come to me directly and I will quote them information and be ready to book. They say, ‘oh, well I need approval from this person,’ and this person will call you with the credit card, and it took multiple days to get the air booked and by that point, the price had changed. So the first thing was just, okay, up front I need to create a corporate account profile: who are the lead people who I will be coordinating with. Who’s in charge of the finances? What sort of accounting and invoicing do they need from me? Also who is the approver for travel and budget because you’ll quote somebody something and they’ll want a better flight time or a better seat and that costs more money, so it’s just making sure that we’re on the same page up front. With larger corporations, they have that already set up. It’s the smaller ones that usually haven’t thought of that before. I’d say the first thing is being very firm up front about the process, how it works and what I need, and then asking them what they’ll need from me so we can go into it knowing exactly what both sides need.”
6.3.3. Valuable Education Resources
“We have all the vendors that we work with—air, hotels, tours, transfers or travel insurance—they do sales calls–come into our office. If it’s a bigger hotel or airline, their sales will be separated into leisure and corporate.”
6.3.4. Advice for Aspiring Corporate Travel Agents
“It’s very important to first speak with other agents who have gone through it. When I first started doing it, I wasn’t well-prepared on how to educate the corporate accounts I was working with. Because they were new to working with travel agents, things kept coming up that we didn’t have a process in place and it delayed the whole booking process. It wasn’t as smooth in the beginning as it could have been. But they were understanding, and they were also new to working with a travel agent. I was up front that I mostly did leisure but was happy to work with them on corporate and that it would be a work in progress and both sides had to communicate on what changes either side needed to make. It would have made it more efficient and easy to organize and handle if I had gone to other agents who did leisure and went into corporate and said, ‘what are the key things I need to be up front about or processes I need to have in place before I start booking the travel?”
7. Key Strategies for Breaking into Corporate Travel
Becoming a corporate travel agent may not be a straightforward journey, but it is definitely achievable.
7.1. Enrollment in a GDS Training Program
GDS training programs provide valuable skills that can help you stand out in the job market. These programs can enhance your resume and equip you with essential knowledge, even if they don’t guarantee immediate employment.
7.2. Application for Entry-Level Corporate Travel Agent Roles
Larger corporate travel agencies, such as BCD Travel, understand the challenges of gaining experience. They often offer training programs for new employees, providing an excellent way to start your career and learn the ropes.
7.3. Networking with Experienced Corporate Agents
Experienced corporate agents can offer invaluable advice and mentorship. Shadowing or assisting them can provide practical insights and help you understand the day-to-day realities of the job.
7.4. Selection of a Supportive Host Agency
Choosing a host agency that supports corporate travel agents can provide access to resources, training, and guidance. Look for agencies that offer GDS training and are committed to helping you achieve your career goals.
8. Benefits of Choosing TRAVELS.EDU.VN
At TRAVELS.EDU.VN, we offer comprehensive support for aspiring corporate travel agents. Our services are designed to help you overcome the challenges of breaking into the industry and achieve long-term success.
8.1. Expertise and Guidance
We provide expert guidance on navigating the corporate travel landscape. Our team of experienced professionals offers personalized advice to help you make informed decisions and advance your career.
8.2. Training and Resources
We offer access to training programs and resources that can help you develop the skills you need to succeed. Our training covers essential topics such as GDS operation, customer service, and sales techniques.
8.3. Networking Opportunities
We provide networking opportunities that connect you with industry professionals and potential employers. Our events and online communities allow you to build relationships and gain valuable insights.
8.4. Personalized Support
We offer personalized support to help you achieve your career goals. Our advisors work with you to develop a customized plan that takes into account your unique strengths, interests, and aspirations.
9. Take the Next Step with TRAVELS.EDU.VN
Ready to embark on a rewarding career as a corporate travel agent? Contact TRAVELS.EDU.VN today to learn more about our services and how we can help you achieve your goals.
9.1. Contact Information
- Address: 123 Main St, Napa, CA 94559, United States
- WhatsApp: +1 (707) 257-5400
- Website: TRAVELS.EDU.VN
9.2. Call to Action
Don’t wait any longer to pursue your dream career. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and discover how TRAVELS.EDU.VN can help you become a successful corporate travel agent. We can help you find packages or tours tailored to your specific needs and preferences.
10. FAQs About Becoming a Corporate Travel Agent
10.1. What is a Corporate Travel Agent?
A corporate travel agent is a professional who specializes in arranging travel for businesses and their employees. They handle booking flights, hotels, car rentals, and other travel-related services, ensuring that business trips are efficient and cost-effective.
10.2. What Skills Are Needed to Become a Corporate Travel Agent?
Key skills include proficiency in GDS systems, strong communication and customer service skills, attention to detail, problem-solving abilities, and knowledge of travel industry trends and regulations.
10.3. How Can I Gain Experience in Corporate Travel?
You can gain experience by completing GDS training programs, working in entry-level travel industry jobs, networking with experienced agents, and seeking mentorship opportunities.
10.4. Do I Need a Degree to Become a Corporate Travel Agent?
While a degree is not always required, it can be beneficial. Relevant fields of study include hospitality management, business administration, and tourism.
10.5. How Much Do Corporate Travel Agents Earn?
Earnings can vary depending on experience, location, and the size of the agency or company. However, corporate travel agents often earn more than leisure travel agents due to service fees and the complexity of corporate travel arrangements.
10.6. What is a GDS System?
A Global Distribution System (GDS) is a computerized network system used by travel agencies and booking websites to access real-time information about flights, hotels, car rentals, and other travel services.
10.7. How Can TRAVELS.EDU.VN Help Me Become a Corporate Travel Agent?
TRAVELS.EDU.VN offers expert guidance, training resources, networking opportunities, and personalized support to help you navigate the corporate travel industry and achieve your career goals.
10.8. What Are the Benefits of Working with a Host Agency?
Working with a host agency can provide access to resources, training, and support that can help you start and grow your career as a corporate travel agent.
10.9. How Do I Find Corporate Clients?
You can find corporate clients by networking with businesses, attending industry events, and offering specialized services that meet their travel needs.
10.10. What Are the Latest Trends in Corporate Travel?
Latest trends include a focus on sustainable travel, the use of technology to enhance the travel experience, and increased demand for personalized and flexible travel arrangements.
At TRAVELS.EDU.VN, we are dedicated to helping you succeed in the dynamic and rewarding field of corporate travel. Contact us today to begin your journey.
By mastering these strategies and leveraging the resources available at travels.edu.vn, you can pave the way for a successful and rewarding career as a corporate travel agent. Our team is here to support you every step of the way, providing expert guidance and valuable resources to help you achieve your goals. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you succeed in the exciting world of corporate travel.
