The Travel Network Group has launched a training academy to support members.
The consortium has been working on the project for the past few months in a bid to meet the business training needs of its members.
The programme is a continuation of the group’s Business Development Action Plan launched in March 2022 and includes face-to-face workshops, virtual webinars and online content to refresh members’ knowledge. It can also act as a new starter training pack.
The group has held separate focus groups with members to put together its workshops and ensure the training sessions are tailored specifically to the needs of travel businesses.
More: TTNG switches 2023 conference from Israel to Germany
The workshops are focused on the sales process and connecting with customers. They include customer service and retention; business management, such as how to attract and onboard new talent and retain existing staff; marketing; PR; product and business partners, which include sessions on how to sell ancillaries, luxury, ski and cruise; and travel regulations, compliance and GDPR.
Stephanie Slark, director of membership services, said: “For the past few months, we have worked with different experts on creating this new training proposition, which will support our members with their training needs – the content is diverse and can be relevant to business managers and owners, to existing travel professionals, as well as to new to travel recruits.
“We know that sometimes finding time out of their business to attend in-person seminars is not the easiest task, therefore we are re-formatting all the content for our in-person workshops and we will make this available onto our new online training platform.
“The online content will be designed as ‘bite-size training’, that can be completed across several days, and our members will be able to track their team’s progress in terms of completed modules.”
Chief executive Gary Lewis added: “Our members are so successful because their customers trust their expertise when it comes to booking their next holiday.
“As a membership organisation, we do everything we can to support our members engage with their customers and sell more holidays.
“We know that recruitment into our industry and retaining existing teams has been challenging post-pandemic, so if there are tools that we can offer to our members, to support them in these two areas, then we know that investing in a training proposition is the right decision for us as a business.”