Travel agency summer internship report

XX Summer Internship Report

After this summer internship, I have a certain understanding of the business conference awards tourism in the tourism industry. The position of my internship is that the op assistant is mainly responsible for some simple transactional work. However, through my study in this environment and my conversations with colleagues, I have learned a lot about the characteristics of the market segment of the business awards travel, as well as some of the abilities required to work in a travel agency.

The travel agency where my internship is located is a travel agency specializing in business awards. Its business is part of the higher end of the tourism industry. Compared with mass tourism, the rigid tourism purchase demand of some companies determines the stability of its market. It is a market segment with good prospects in China's current tourism market. And because of the high added value of the product, it also determines its high return on investment. Therefore, in recent years, many tourism companies have entered the market, such as Ctrip, China Travel Express. During these days of internships, I learned about some of the commonalities in travel agencies and some of the features of business travel awards. Let's briefly talk about the experience gained through the internship during this time.

From the source of the travel agency, 60% are foreign-funded enterprises, 25% are state-owned enterprises, 10% are private enterprises, and 5% are government agencies. The main source of the award-winning tourism is foreign-funded enterprises and state-owned enterprises. Private enterprises are more about the motivation of tourism purchases caused by rent-seeking behavior and commercial bribery. And the corresponding sales channels for different companies are different. For large foreign-invested companies, they usually use tenders to select travel agencies. This requires our sales to be achieved through bidding. In this way, each travel agency has produced a fairer competition. But for some other customers, the competition is mainly reflected in the interpersonal relationship. A salesperson of our company said to me, "I don't say who's the best price to choose who's product, but who is good with him. As long as they have a good relationship with their key`person, this reflects the importance of "doing a good relationship" with such a customer base. But the most suitable way to sell for that type of sales is direct sales.

As far as our tourism products are concerned, they are very different from mass tourism products. Mass tourism products are designed first. Then through the sales department or online sales, there is a greater homogeneity, which has caused a large number of travel agency price wars. And our travel products are individually and individually personalized according to the needs of each of our customers, ie the company. This has led to the differentiation of products, so it has jumped out of the price war in the travel agency industry and improved competitiveness with high-quality services. However, for the business conference award market, there is a high demand for the funds of its investors and the quality of its employees. First of all, in the mass tourism industry, business travel awards require a large amount of liquidity. Because large suppliers in this market segment usually delay payment by three or four months, a group of 100 people is likely to need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. This has a higher requirement for its amount of funds. For employees, the people they serve are not the general public, but the senior staff of some companies, which requires their employees to have a higher quality.

Due to the particularity of this high-end tourism product, the design of its products is not completed by the staff, but by the sales staff of the product in the contact with the customer. This requires sales personnel not only to have good interpersonal relationship processing capabilities, but also to have a comprehensive understanding of the world's attractions, customs and so on. This is also one of the differences between the business travel award travel agency and the mass travel agency. The line designers of the mass travel agency are usually divided into European lines, American lines, etc., but in this market segment, our line design is determined by the needs of customers. It is also designed in the negotiation with customers. We don't know in advance where our customers want to go, so this requires our sales staff to be familiar with the global travel routes. This is also a reason why qualified sales people are hard to find. Moreover, I analyzed the company's staff distribution. The company has a total of 28 people and 24 income centers. Among them, there are 10 people who are responsible for sales, minus 3 adjustments, 3 visas and one for graphic design. The remaining seven people will also undertake some sales tasks more or less. It seems that the ratio of sales people to the total profit center is more than 2/5. Such a large proportion can be seen as the importance of sales people. By understanding, sales are indeed a major bottleneck restricting the development of travel agencies. But why is the company not expanding its size through a large number of recruitment sales? There are two main reasons for this: The first point is the stability of the team. This seems to be difficult for us as a student. It is a collective job-hopping problem. A vice president of our company told me that if there are 100 sales in the company now, it would be normal if one day suddenly went out dozens of people. In this case, the stability of the company will be greatly reduced. The second point is because the right people are hard to find. The company has been recruiting sales staff recently, but the right people have not been able to find it. From these two points of view, there are two obstacles to the expansion of the scale of travel agencies. One is the phenomenon of job-hopping, especially the fear of large-scale job-hopping for business operators, and the inability to recruit people. The former requires the company to establish a sound human resources management system to achieve the goal of recruiting talents, motivating talents, and retaining talents. The latter requires the country's giant education system to provide qualified and available talent for tourism companies. But these two are precisely the two major problems that exist in China's SMEs and China's education system.

As far as the workflow of our company is concerned, the following modules are generally included:

1. Find the customer → 2. Line design → 3. Inquiry → 4. Quote → 5. Negotiate agreement → 6. Visa → 7. Schedule → 8. Contact with the ground guide → 9. Get out → 10. Track → 11. After-sales relationship maintenance The sales staff is the first-line personnel of the travel agency. The main responsibility is to communicate with the customers. The duties mainly include the above 1, 2, 4, 5, 11, and 5 modules. Need to have good interpersonal skills and an understanding of the world's attractions.

The metering staff is mainly responsible for 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 5 modules. Ask for a more comprehensive understanding of the attractions around the world. I also need to know some price and service quality for each airline and hotel. Then there is a need for a strong coordination ability, because it is necessary to deal with some unexpected events happening in the travel process and the communication and coordination of the ground guides and other personnel.

The visa officer is mainly responsible for the sixth module. Personnel must have a certain understanding of various types of visas in various countries. Because the visa is a very detailed and repetitive job. The main job is to organize the information and fill out the form. Therefore, visa personnel are required to be very careful and have to have strong patience.

As far as the management of our company is concerned, it is a senior travel practitioner who can stand alone and complete the entire workflow independently. I once heard from my colleagues that some of the general managers of the vip group went to the company in person. This makes me feel confused, but her answer is "Others can't bring it, even the general manager sometimes encounters very difficult problems." After this period of observation, the company's management is very experienced. Senior travel practitioners have been working for 10 years. Therefore, it can be concluded that the management of travel agencies, especially the management of travel agencies focusing on the high-end tourism market, should be based on rich experience. There is not a general knowledge of management theory and industry. The person can be competent. Of course, perhaps this is probably due to the small size of our agency. But in terms of the atomic industrial structure of the tourism industry, there are only a handful of large-scale travel agencies. Therefore, I would like to ask a question, can the professional managers of the tourism industry be cultivated? Is our employment prospect really so good? Or these questions can only be answered by the community.

Below I briefly say the following two problems that I found in my company where I was internship.

The first point is that brand awareness is not strong. One salesperson told me that we are not the same as those of the mass travel agency. We don't have to go to the brand and make a good relationship. When I asked the vice president who often participated in the bidding on the issue of building a brand, he said that “travel agencies such as the National Travel Service also participate in the bidding, but it is not necessarily theirs. The key depends on your price/performance ratio, and if you advertise, It is better to use the money to recruit a few more sales to increase profits." This is indeed true, after all, the company is pursuing profit maximization. And our market is also making the brand's effect a little smaller. But the brand is an added value of the product. Since the quality of our company's products is very good, this added value is positive, so it should be used. And the way to brand is not just advertising. For example, to promote the brand to the users of your products.

The second point, I don't know if it is a problem, that is, the human resources management system is not perfect. In today's increasingly fierce market competition, focusing only on external competition and not paying attention to the construction of human resources management system is almost a common problem for most SMEs. Of course, the reason for this manifestation has its certain inevitability. Because the human resources management system is based on the clear division of duties and responsibilities. But SMEs do not have this prerequisite. And in terms of the size of the current company, if you hire a dedicated human resources manager, there will be insufficient utilization. Therefore, the human resources management of SMEs has yet to be resolved by relevant experts.

As for the reason why I don’t know if this is a problem, it is mainly because of the size of the company and the family atmosphere of the company. Is it the most efficient to establish an institutionalized human resource management model at this stage? The lack of an institutionalized human resource management system determines the flexibility of the company's human resource management to some extent. And this is precisely one of the advantages of SMEs. Moreover, the company is heavily trained, has a good working environment, has a certain sense of organizational identity, and is highly motivated. This basically has reached the goal of human resources management. Therefore, I have to ask the teachers a question. Should all enterprises establish a sound human resource management system?

Regarding the development of human resources, I am very pleased that the company attaches great importance to training, and it takes three hours a week to train employees to improve their business capabilities. This is something that few SMEs can do. And the content of the training is also clearly targeted. For example, the main content of the sales staff training is the local customs, the content of the op personnel training will involve the introduction of some airlines and so on. Due to the relevance of the training content selection, employees are also willing to participate in the training. In addition, in order to improve the quality of training, employees are also required to evaluate the content of the training after the training, so that the training is more effective in a two-way communication process.

Although there are some problems, the company's development is still very good. From the 11 people who were founded 10 years ago to the current 28 people, it is a big development. As far as I am concerned, the development of the company is mainly driven by two factors. First of all, from a business perspective, the company's positioning is very clear. It is a banner that specializes in high-end business conference awards and travels as a business exhibition expert. It concentrates on this aspect and does not engage in other fields. This is also in line with the marketing strategy of the small business target market. Thereby increasing its competitiveness. Looking at the management level, the company has many employees who have worked in foreign companies and also recruited some overseas returnees. Introduce a family management model on the management structure. The employees in the company use the English name, which dilutes the hierarchy brought by some Chinese titles and narrows the distance between employees and managers. Moreover, the company also organizes some group trips on a regular basis, which further enhances the intimacy between employees and management between employees and employees. It has a very positive impact on cultivating employees' loyalty to the company.