A former Advantage Travel Partnership national account manager has launched a training business for the industry and is encouraging agencies to upskill staff who are on furlough.
Director Michelle van Sprang has set up Train2Travel. Courses range from apprenticeships for new starters to degree-level qualifications that help agents learn management skills.
Its courses are 95% funded by the government, and in some areas are fully funded, meaning travel companies pay up to 5% of costs, equivalent to between £100 and £350, depending on the course.
Train2Travel has designed its own bespoke travel consultant course specifically to train students for agency roles. It is one of seven courses, which take 12-18 months and can be completed online.
Students complete modules in their own time via a system called Bud. Courses are certified by City & Guilds, inspected by Ofsted, and equivalent to a year’s college course.
Paula O’Leary has been recruited from training provider TrainingStation as tutor and Van Sprang hopes she will lead a team of tutors from a training centre as the business grows and lockdown eases.
The Train2Travel website is due to go live in the coming weeks.
Van Sprang, who started her career as an apprentice with Thomas Cook and worked for Gold Medal and The Holiday Team before joining Advantage, where she helped new agencies set up, said: “The number of people asking me about apprenticeships kept growing, and I remembered how optimistic I was when I first started. There are other training providers around but none are specific to travel like we are.”
Van Sprang said now was a perfect time to upskill staff on furlough, pointing out there are no restrictions to training while on the scheme.
She added: “I think the biggest question in job interviews this year and next will be, ‘what did you do while on furlough?’ To show you took a self-improvement course will look really good.”
