MARRIOTT is to roll out its Hotels Excellence training programme for travel agents in Europe and the rest of the world next month.
The global push follows the successful introduction of the scheme – said to be the biggest of its kind ever launched by a hotelier – in the US last year.
Marriott has put together a detailed manual broken into different training modules offering useful tips on how to maximise sales of hotel rooms.
The training programme is also designed to improve agents’ knowledge of the hotel industry worldwide and of the Marriott brands stretching from its budget to luxury properties.
Marriott introduced the programme following a Louis Harris /Travel Weekly US survey conducted in 1997 which asked hotel guests a series of questions about booking rooms.
The survey revealed that two-thirds of customers asked for advice on hotels, but training among the travel agency community was seen as almost non-existent.
Furthermore, with only 25% of the industry’s hotel bookings made through travel agents, Marriott recognised that training and general awareness had to be improved.
Marriott’s training scheme, until now only tailored to the US market, includes a workbook with a multiple choice test paper which agents can fill in and e-mail or post direct to Marriott.
The company has spent the past few months translating the training manual for agents worldwide.
Marriott is to roll out the programme on October 6 to predominantly business travel houses at simultaneous presentations in cities across the world, including Hong Kong, Tokyo and Dubai.
Chairman of the Guild of Business Travel Agents hotel working party James Myles said: “This is a great idea which the Guild has looked at and fully supports. Icertainly haven’t seen anything like this before on such a scale. It is a positive step being taken by a large international hotelier to invest heavily in training travel agents.
“Anything that creates greater awareness among travel agents about booking hotels has to be seen as a good move,”he added.
Myles said the GBTA itself was putting a lot of effort into booking hotels with many of the larger members having dedicated hotel departments.
Two months ago, GBTA members swapped roles with hoteliers to understand the mechanics of a hotel operation.