4.3 Careers in the Travel Trade
Meagan A. McGuire
A variety of career paths are available for individuals interested in working for or with travel trade companies. Each travel trade role is distinct in the marketplace, yet many commonalities exist among travel trade employees. People who work in the travel trade typically enjoy traveling and their employment often provides them with many opportunities to do so. These employees are often service oriented and are enthusiastic about sharing their passion for travel with others. Due to the nature of travel distribution, employees of travel trade businesses are relationship-focused and place high value on mutually beneficial connections with their travel product suppliers, partners, and clients.
About Michael
Michael Cassis “has been a part of the Australian and New Zealand Travel Industry for over [20] years. Having worked as a front line retail agent, wholesale agent, and in product and marketing distribution roles, he has extensive experience across all facets of the travel trade landscape” (Linkd Tourism, n.d., para. 1).
As Cassis explains (personal communication, November 29, 2023),
I think my greatest success in tourism stems from the varied roles I’ve been fortunate enough to have done over my career. Our industry is huge—arguably the largest globally—encompassing aviation, cruise, other transportation (trains, cars, etc.), hotels and accommodation, travel agencies…. [T]he list is endless. Think about it, even Rideshare drivers are part of our mammoth family. So this means there are lots of doors you could choose to open, depending on where your passion lies.
For me, I started as a retail travel agent who wanted to specialize in selling USA (and mostly Disney) holidays to Australian customers. I felt specialist travel agents were scarce, and given the complexity of travel to the USA from Australia (most Australians visit 2-3 states on an 18+ night trip, when visiting America), that this would be a strong business proposition. I still feel that speciality is necessary—and post-COVID this seems to be a trend more travel agents are pursuing—but my career ended up taking a slightly different approach due to the doors that opened.
My role as an agent gave me the chance to see more of the world than I’d dreamed of, and I became excited by the notion of finding the key themes and products that would resonate with traveler demographics. So I ended up pursuing a role in sales and marketing which allowed me to not just sell a holiday to one traveler, but the aspiration of a destination and product to many.
My biggest learning over my career is that there is no one best and only way in tourism. Every company. Every destination. Every customer. They all behave differently. Tourism is about taking people away from their home for a period of time. Some choose to immerse themselves in local culture. But most bring with them their own presumptions and predispositions. So just because a local might think their