Inclu Global Travel Academy launches ‘Freshers Month’ for agents

A newly launched training academy is inviting agents to join a ‘Freshers Month’ programme designed as an introduction to selling inclusive travel experiences.

 

The Inclu Global Travel Academy (IGTA) has been set up by Inclu Travel Group, which specialises in creating services and support for disabled consumers.

 

It has designated September as Freshers Month for independent travel agents and homeworkers and is offering a free, 20-minute training session, which will give the ‘human, professional and commercial case for developing greater inclusive capability’.

 

The programme is intended as a ‘first step’ in terms of advice on how to sell inclusive travel.

 

It covers why inclusive travel is of interest to all professional agents; the breadth of individual requirements; the importance of ‘seeing the customer before the requirement’; why accessibility and inclusivity are not interchangeable; how inaccurate information and assumptions create friction; the commercial cost of lost confidence; and the agent’s influence across the complete journey.

 

Agents who take part will complete a short knowledge check and receive an Inclu Academy Freshers Certificate of Completion. This is not a professional accreditation.

 

Richard Thompson, founder of Inclu Academy and chief executive of Inclu Travel Group, said: “We do not believe anyone becomes an inclusive travel professional in 20 minutes.

 

“Freshers has a different purpose. It is designed to challenge assumptions, introduce a new perspective and help advisors recognise both the opportunity and the limits of their current knowledge.

 

“Freshers changes how you see inclusive travel. Professional education changes what you are capable of doing about it.”

 

Thompson said the rapid rise in travel homeworking models had enabled thousands of “talented, ambitious people to build businesses with greater flexibility and independence” but stressed the numbers of agents now entering the sector without traditional experience meant the “responsibility for structured, credible education” had “never been greater”.

 

He said agents increasingly encountered clients with visible, non-visible, permanent, temporary, age-related and situational requirements but few were trained in how to begin appropriate conversations, understand individual requirements, find the right supplier information or identify potential issues.

 

He added: “Inclusive travel is often reduced to finding an accessible hotel room or asking a supplier whether something is suitable.

 

“But the word ‘accessible’ is not a universal specification, and two clients with the same disability may have entirely different capabilities, preferences and requirements.

 

“Authentic capability means knowing how to ask, what to verify, where a journey could fail and how to avoid making assumptions on someone else’s behalf.”

 

He noted the academy was keen to ensure agents recognised the commercial implications of not being able to respond confidently to a client’s needs – from losing the booking to losing the longer-term relationship.

 

“Conversely, advisors who develop credible inclusive capability can retain clients as their circumstances change, convert enquiries competitors may struggle to handle and build strong referral relationships based on trust,” he said.

 

He added: “Inclusive travel is not simply an underserved market. It is existing business that our industry remains insufficiently capable of serving. The human case and the commercial case are not competing arguments.

 

“Better understanding creates greater confidence, and greater confidence creates commercial opportunity.”