The travel industry is diverse and made up of many different sectors including travel agents, tour guides, cruising and the list goes on. I have ten years of experience working in travel and most of this time was working at a wholesaler. A majority of people don’t know about travel wholesalers, basically they are the middle man between the travel agent and the travel supplier.

My career started in the Accounts Department and then I moved to the Product Department and became a Product Manager. My main role was negotiating hotel rates, producing travel brochures and keeping up to date with a destination.

Working in the travel industry is good fun with lots of opportunities to travel, majority of the people you work with are very vibrant and fun loving. Don’t get me wrong it is not all good times, there are plenty of stressful things that go on behind the scenes. Hotels will overbook and you need to try and get the hotel to honor your bookings or relocate your passengers. Terrorism, natural disasters and airlines going bankrupt can leave your passengers stranded in a foreign country and you need to try and get them home as soon as possible. Thankfully these things don’t happen too often but you never know when a problem with occur.

I was fortunate that the position I held meant that I travelled often to trade shows or to inspect hotels and negotiate hotel rates. Long days were involved often starting with a breakfast meeting and finishing with a dinner meeting but I got to see amazing hotels, places I could never afford to stay at!! I always took the opportunity to do some tours and explore different parts of the various countries I visited.

Travel is a fun, vibrant industry to work in however many of the jobs are not high paying so you do it for the love of travel!