Whether you are ready to grow your business by hiring another employee or just want to improve yourself as an agent, these are the characteristics that distinguish outstanding travel agents from good ones!

1. Knowledge
   When travelers choose to use a travel agent instead of booking a trip on their own, they are looking for experience. Turn yourself into an information sponge and soak up everything you need to know about airlines, airports, destinations, restaurants and accommodations. Read articles and travel publications to stay informed. Don’t be afraid to ask your suppliers questions about the products you buy.

2. Professionalism
   Have high expectations of professionalism for yourself and your employees. Check spelling in your emails and quotes. Put in place effective processes for making and managing bookings, rather than just “figuring it out” as you go along. Consider introducing or enforcing a personal dress code so you feel on top of your game, even if you work from home!

3. Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is contagious. Be excited about what you are selling and your customers will realize it. Be that crazy person who loves Mondays. Keep your standards high and set goals ahead of yourself. Remember to save a lot of time in the year for your own travels. This will keep you excited and passionate about what you are doing!

4. People skills
   Are you able to pick up on the subtle signals of communication? Are you able to understand what a client really wants when they have difficulty expressing it clearly? Do you know how and when to close the deal? Some of these things come naturally, but a lot can be learned by simply paying attention. Become a researcher of human nature, even when you’re not at work, and you’ll begin to develop a keen ability to read people.
5. Honesty
   Be honest and forthright about rates, rules and regulations. Don’t try to sell something you don’t think your travelers will like. Referrals and recommendations are your best form of advertising, but they simply won’t happen if you don’t maintain the highest standards of honesty.
6. Resourcefulness
   A great travel agent has the ability to think on their feet and adapt to new situations. Whether it’s a forced schedule change, an unusual request, or a missed connection, it’s important to be savvy. Learn how to stay calm and handle emergencies like a professional. Figure out what resources are available to you and make it happen! Your clients will think you are a miracle worker!
7. Empathy
   Even if you do everything right in the booking process, travel arrangements can often go awry. Airlines get delayed, bags get lost, travelers can get sick. The fact that the incident that occurred was not your fault does not mean you are not compassionate. Be an advocate for your client whenever you can. Use your experience to reach out to airlines and travel insurance companies. If there is really nothing you can do, offer your best suggestions and your sincere sympathy. Be considerate and let them feel heard and understood.

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It is advisable to divide the functioning system of entrepreneurship in the tourism sector into two parts, namely, the tourism industry and the hospitality industry. The tourism industry is a complex system of management of tour operators, travel agencies, transport, entertainment industry, and excursion and educational organizations. The hospitality industry includes hotels, motels, hostels and other accommodation facilities, restaurants, pizzerias, snack bars, canteens, coffee shops, cafes and other food establishments, as well as entities providing consumer services and communications.

The tourism industry is characterized by the subject matter of its activities, namely, the provision of tourist services to customers and the creation of a tourist product.

A tourist service is a set of actions taken by travel agencies, travel operators, travel companies, recreational and tourist and recreational resort complexes, hospitality establishments, accommodation facilities and hotel and restaurant complexes to meet a number of consumer needs, i.e. tourists. It is worth noting that a tourist service is a component of a tourist product. At the same time, a tourist service can be purchased by tourists and consumed by them directly at the place of its provision. Tourist services are essentially divided into basic (those included in a tourist package), as well as additional and related services.

A tourist product is a set of tourist services provided to meet the needs of tourists during the entire period of their travel. The structure of a tourism product includes services and goods. The peculiarity of a tourist product is that it can be ordered and paid for at the place of residence, but consumed only in the area where the tourist services were created. In the scientific literature and tourism practice, one can repeatedly encounter the identification of the concept of “tourist product” with the categories of “tour” and “tourist package”.

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Human behavior is driven by a goal, although we are not always aware of this goal. Max Weber identified four types of social action, one of which he called traditional. Traditional action is based on people’s long-standing habits. It is based on social patterns of behavior, norms that have become habitual, traditional, and not subject to verification.

Most of our everyday behavior can be attributed to this type. At the same time, in some cases, traditional action can be approximated or transformed into affective action. The latter is caused by the affects or emotional state of the individual.

The determinant of an affective action is emotional excitement that turns into passion, a deep emotional impulse, so it is performed only for the purpose of expressing emotions. Being a short-term emotional state, such an action is not oriented toward evaluating others or consciously choosing a goal.

This action often goes beyond what is conscious. In general, traditional and affective actions often border, on the one hand, on purely reactive, unconscious behavior, and, on the other hand, on rational behavior, in which people either believe in self-sufficient value regardless of the consequences of the action (value-rational action) or consciously select appropriate means to achieve the goal, taking into account possible consequences (goal-oriented action).

In other words, behavior is not a consequence of achieving a goal, but the performance of certain ritual actions, the purpose of which is in the background, the action becomes more important than the result. A person is satisfied with the process, not the result of an action. “A pure ritual is an activity that has no direct goal, but is performed because it is “customary”. … In many cases, it is more convenient to act “as is customary” than to solve a problem every time: to choose the most appropriate action.”

Ritual behavior can be based on the standards of the social group to which a person belongs, or on the influence of remnants of past cultures that fit into the modern culture of society in certain ways.

Ritual activity also allows for “aimless” behavior, when the need to achieve a certain result disappears. A person feels free from everyday needs. Rejecting everyday goals, a person feels “above them”. At the same time, the “absence” of a goal allows you to stop working at any time without risk. Such a “virtual zone of activity” makes it possible to fully reveal a person’s abilities without the threat of loss. Ritual activity is based on ancient instincts or mythological imaginations woven into modern culture. The development of human spirituality is realized through ritual. At the same time, ritual is a means of self-affirmation, self-defense, and socialization.

At one time, the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde contrasted tradition with fashion. They are two forms of imitation. In his opinion, tradition is imitation of the past, acting within a social group, community or stratum. Fashion is imitation of the future, the new, and often goes beyond the boundaries of a particular social community. Fashion and tradition are closely interconnected and mutually reinforce each other. The original form of civilization, he wrote, which originated among a given tribe, spreads through traditions for centuries in a closed environment, then, having broken free of these close boundaries, continues to spread among related or alien tribes, through fashion.

But is it always a tradition of reproducing past experience? We did not witness the past; it is not our experience. It is only our idea of the past, our interpretation of the past experience. Here, too, the question arises: What period should be considered the past? Society is heterogeneous, our culture is a mosaic combination of subcultures of different groups, and therefore, which subculture should we take as the basic, dominant one?

We create a myth about the past based on present needs, and this past may have very little to do with historical reality.

Tradition is not just an imitation of the past that once happened, it is a connection between old and new content that creates the appearance of continuity in our society.

Therefore, the reproduction of traditions is not a restoration of historical truth, but a process of myth-making an image of the past aimed at the future. For the myth of the past, the future comes to the fore. Tradition only builds on the past and forms a virtual history.

The myth of the past with new, modern content can become a tourist product.

In turn, a tourist product is seen as a social construct, as something experienced and endowed with meanings, associations and memories. The answer to the question of how products in tourism are constructed, understood and consumed should be sought in the peculiarities of cultural practices.

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