AFTA reveals highest agency turnover + more
You might be familiar with the folk at the Australian Federation of Travel Agents, or AFTA. Well, they’ve released a bunch of new data on the state of the travel agent industry today.
The new reports, which will be coming monthly, are called AFTA Travel Trends, and are aimed at helping the travel industry get a better grasp on the latest patterns in travel, becoming a better consultant in the process.
AFTA’s March Travel Trends showed that Australians took 9.9 million trips over the 12 months to January 2017. Of that 9.9 million, 70 per cent booked at least one part of their trip through a travel agent.
Aussies were travelling largely to three key destinations – New Zealand (1.3 million trips), Indonesia (1.2 million trips), and USA (1.06 million trips). But they also looked at snapshots of both the industry and its employment status, showing some interesting insights.
As far as employment in Australia goes, NSW leads the charge, with 7430 full-time travel consultants, followed by Victoria with 4824 and Queensland with 4054.
The workforce is split with 70 per cent female and 30 per cent male, while 58 per cent work full time and 42 per cent part time.
And what about the most important attributes for frontline staff?
- Destination knowledge
- Team player
- Willingness to learn
- Travel qualification (Cert III preferred)
A total of 42 per cent of agencies are also looking to hire new staff this year, first in frontline consultant roles, then business development / sales, followed by administration.
The age breakdown also shows the bulk of the workforce is aged between 32 to 45, and 46 to 56, with both brackets consisting of 29 per cent of the total workforce.
Seventy-two per cent of the travel agent industry is made up of retail leisure travel agencies, with corporate travel agencies coming in second place followed by travel wholesalers.
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