Viki Fardell, weddings co-ordinator, Amathus Holidays
Education: seven GCSE’s. BTECFirst Diploma in Distribution (Business Studies), BTECNational Diploma in Travel and Tourism, passed with distinctions.
First travel job: sales and marketing assistant at Olympic Holidays.
Career path: travel consultant in the hotel department, inbound division of Miki Travel, London, for eight months, took a break of two months to travel around Europe. Joined Chalais Travel andTours as travel consultant for just over one year and then became reservations consultant with Amathus Holidays for three-and-a-half years. After this Viki moved into the sales and marketing department as sales and marketing co-ordinator before being appointed weddings co-ordinator.
Training: Viki has attended customer-care training courses with Amathus Holidays which really helped her to sell holidays, and also to deal with people. This is especially important when dealing with wedding couples, who want an approachable and friendly person to talk to. Her day-to-day dealings with travel agents and the public while in reservations really helped her to develop better communication skills.
Advice for people wishing to develop a career in travel: “Never lose sight of your goals, but don’t give up if you don’t get what you want straight away. The travel industry is as much about personality as qualifications and experience. If you can’t sell yourself, you can’t sell anything.”