MTravel Hosting Services Shares Insights into Your Success
Written By: Melissa Roberts, Business Development Manager – MTravel Hosting Services
With 2019 fully underway, I have noticed some things have not changed. Whether you are brand spanking new to the travel industry or an experienced veteran, there are two things that every agent needs to achieve success and gain that competitive edge: continued learning and amazing technology.
Get A Host Agency That Can Do Both
Keeping up with both technology and professional development is a top priority for any travel advisor. But getting up to date information from all the various supplier partners while both creating and managing a website can be a daunting task. Are your clients able to book on your website? Do you have access to update to date supplier information? Why not be with a host agency that can provide you with it all!
New Year, Updated Technology
At MTravel, we offer a consumer facing fully b ooking capable website and back-office portal, Agent Connex, for many years. The consumer website offers a centralized place for clients to book air, car, hotel, and cruises. On the other end, Agent Connex helps our travel advisors to keep up to date on supplier news, their bookings and more. Though the two systems are amazing tech resources for any travel ad visor, there is always room for improvement.
With the help of our parent company, Corporate Travel Management, we have put a large investment into our technology and have been in the process of a complete redesign of the website and Agent Connex. Our focus is to make them both more user friendly and mobile responsive while having a modern, streamlined look. We are looking forward to the launch this month and more improvements to come soon after.
Let’s Get Both Practical and Personal
We are fierce advocates for ongoing learning— it’s the attitude that has helped our independent contractors grow successful business. That learning involves two key components: practical development and personal development.
Practical development includes learning fun new stuff: streamlining your e-marketing, mastering key booking tools, experiencing and docum enting the hottest new destination. Personal development channels the power of people: the bond forged with your preferred suppliers, the trust built with your host agency, the wisdom gleaned from your fellow travel professionals.
Together, these components enrich your knowledge, minimize mistakes and protect you from falling a step (or two) behind your competitors. Partnering with a progressive host agency like MTravel provides ample opportunity for both.
Professional Development: It’s Different for Everyone, and That’s Okay
Variety is the spice of life! At MTravel, we’ve spent the last few decades observing how people learn and thrive as travel agency owners. Based on extensive feedback from our independent travel professionals, we’ve finessed our professional development programs down to a fine science to blend those two components—and our latest offerings are our best yet.
For Face-to-Face Learners: Jump Start LIVE!
Starting your own business is a serious undertaking. MTravel’s award-winning Jump Start Series began as a live webinar series designed for the beginner agent to help break up the process into bite-sized pieces. At the end of a month, graduates were ready to take on the world, fueled with enough knowledge to curate travel with confidence.
But not everyone learns best in front of a screen. To help, we created a face-to-face extension of our popular Jump Start Series, perfect for both new agents as well as those looking for a caffeine jolt for their business.
This 3-day bootcamp style professional development covers crucial elements like how to develop your agency brand, top booking techniques for air, hotel, cruise, vacation packages and insurance, best practices for accounting, workshops, open Q&A forums and more. We also create bonding experiences with a cocktail hour, mini-trade show and farewell dinner to give you maximum networking time with your peers and preferred suppliers.
Into 2019, we are looking to offer Jump Start Live in May. The session will be hosted at our headquarters in beautiful Montrose, California. The proof of success is in the feedback. “Jump Start Live is an excellent training and networking session,” said former attendee Doreen Coones of Coones Travel and Tours. “The big picture the travel industry, hosting agency, supplier relationship, and how I fit in as an independent contractor finally became clear to my mind.” We couldn’t have put it better.
For the Tech-Challenged: MTech Academy
MTravel’s MTech Academy is our newest, stripped-down approach to helping travel professionals get comfy with technology. In partnership with Virtuoso, the nation’s leading travel consortium, this in-person event eliminates distractions and zeroes in on the best tools and programs to manage your travel business. Our intimate sessions demystify travel technology with critical workshops on affordable cloud-based business tools, social media advertising, digital marketing technology and an exclusive professional development session at Virtuoso’s own headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas just around the corner in March. Attendees leave refreshed, equipped and more tech-efficient than ever.
For Those Hungry for More: Annual Educational Conference
This is our masterstroke, the most highly rated event among our independent travel professionals. Held in a new destination every year, this 5-day conference represents the turning point for many travel professionals; the event that transforms the course of their career and forges lifelong friendships.
This year’s event, “New Frontiers,” will continue the success of the two different educational tracks from the 2018 conference. One of the tracks is focusing on the basics for our newer independent travel professionals and the other homing in on assisting our experienced veterans learn more advanced selling techniques. Best-in-class professional development sessions, supplier focused workshops and intimate roundtables are coupled with a stay at the Four Seasons Hotel, Vancouver along with a beautiful Alaskan cruise onboard Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas. Hailed as “invaluable,” “motivational,” and a “must-do” by our attendees, the Annual Educational Conference is the reigning king of ongoing learning for savvy travel professionals.
Join us September 5th-10th, registration is already open for all MTravel agents.
Professional Development and Technology = The Shortcut to Success
When it comes to being cutting edge in the travel industry, having the right host agency partner is critical. MTravel represents the biggest shortcut to success by supplying built-in opportunities to fast track your development in the travel industry as well has providing you with always improving technology. With more than 40 years of hosting under our belt, rock-solid supplier relationships and the resources of a top-11 international travel company like Corporate Travel Management on our side, we’ve already done the hard work for you. So what part can you take to get that competitive edge?
Are you ready to start your independent travel business with MTravel? We are here to help! Contact us here or call us at 800-870- 5799. Be sure to check out our website at www.MTravel.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.