Advantage Travel Partnership is to roll out more training for agents, including speed dating sessions with suppliers, tools to clinch Peak sales and a mentorship scheme for business owners and managers.

Next month, Advantage will launch Frontliners, which will train sales staff on available products, how to sell more cruise and how to overcome key challenges. Front line staff will also be able to have ‘speed dating’ sessions with suppliers.

A new travel consultant training programme is also being introduced, aimed at those that are new to travel or have returned to the industry. The course will cover topics such as customer service, sales, travel planning and industry legislation.

A mentoring and executive coaching programme will also be rolled out, to give business owners and travel managers the opportunity to work with a mentor, who will support and help develop their leadership skills.

In November and December, Advantage will deliver a training initiative called Peak Performers to help members prepare for the busy peaks campaign.

Chief Commercial Officer Kelly Cookes said: “Through investing significantly in our Business Development team over the past 18 months we have been able to assess what training needs there are amongst our membership and develop a robust proposition that meets their needs.”

The new training initiatives were announced at the Advantage conference in Cancun, Mexico, where Advantage CEO Julia Lo Bue-Said said 90% of members have reported picking up new customers in the past 18 months.

Julia also said 50 MPs have visited agents in the local constituency in the nine months since Advantage first sent out invites as part of the consortium’s focus on creating more opportunities to speak with Government representatives.

Julia said: “I believe that building that relationship with MPs and giving education on the industry needs to be done at grass roots level. It all helps drive the awareness of outbound travel and make inroads.

“As an industry we need to speak with an amplified voice and there is an opportunity to simplify regulations – that is key in our ask for the current Government and any future Government.

“Government policymakers know people want to go on holiday but what they don’t understand beyond that is the eco-system behind it – and it’s incumbent on us to make sure we are speaking to the right departments and the right policymakers.”