The global reach of COVID-19 and subsequent measures of quarantine has resulted in companies having to rethink how they operate. In addition to the physical challenges of quarantine, travel agencies’ workflow changed quickly with a surge of cancellations, refunds and rebookings, followed by a swift downward turn in new bookings and revenue.
The challenge was to adapt quickly and ensure customer’s needs were still being addressed while large scale change happened within the agency.
According to McKinsey*, to emerge stronger from COVID-19, companies should start to re-skill their employees now.
Many travel agencies have identified this need and have taken action quickly, using this time as an opportunity to reskill during the period when some workflows are quieter.
Many of Sabre’s customers reported that they used this challenge to rethink the way they operated and start thinking about retraining for the future post COVID-19 world. This goes beyond remote working, more so how leaders can reskill their workforce to deliver new business models in the post-pandemic era
As the technologies and resources available are constantly evolving, Sabre offers extensive training opportunities spanning across multiple products and services through Sabre Central, the platform which gives consultants quick access to the help they need for their day-to-day tasks. A variety of learning resources are available 24x7, via a personal computer, and consultants can track activity via an online transcript. The many available options will enable every consultant to get the most flexible and customized training experience possible:
Hear from our customers on how they have adopted one of these during the crisis.
Millenium, a Sabre customer for over 6 years, is a major travel agency in Russia, specializing in business travel for a large portfolio of clients.
Similar to many industry peers, the agency faced immense challenges and increased pressure in the beginning of the pandemic due to the growing number of refunds and exchanges. This led the Millenium team to start redesigning the way they run the business. It was important that they not only reorganize business processes within the company, but also help their travel agents become more multi-functional during the recovery and acceleration periods.
Millenium adopted Sabre Red 360 last year which resulted in only a portion of the team using it. In April 2020, Millenium took advantage of the reduced workload to undergo a major training exercise for all 56 travel managers on Sabre Red 360. After the two-week virtual training, during which the staff learned not only about the overall Sabre Red 360 tools and resources, but also deep dive in critical topics like profiles, fare quotes and pricing, ticketing and reports, automated exchange and refunds and ancillary product and services, all agents became fully proficient in managing bookings using the same workspace, and therefore ready to become more agile in their roles once the travel industry recovers.
"The training sessions hosted by Sabre were beneficial to our team. They provided an opportunity to upskill our most important asset, our people. And the online format allowed all 56 of our agents to gain valuable knowledge from the comfort of their own homes." Yulia Manuylova, CEO, Millennium
Alhind is a consolidator with 16 International offices, 41 direct offices and 4 franchise offices in India. Through their +1000 employees in India and overseas they provide e2e travel services across the globe. Until Covid-19, all training courses for Alhind teams were managed onsite, in the various company offices.
As India entered in the lock down period at the end of March, all employees were moved to smart working. The agency managers decided to use the opportunity to train the travel consultants in Calicut (Kerala State) on Sabre Red 360. During April and May, more than 40 agents were trained online on Sabre Red 360 in 2 languages, Malayalam and English.
For Alhind, it was the first time they adopted the online training option. The new method proved to be the most effective as they were able to personalize the course by adding a Malayalam speaker to facilitate the sessions and ensure all agents were able to follow the topics covered. As a result, all agents are now fully equipped with the required knowledge in preparation for the recovery period.
“Sabre has proved to be a strong technology partner. The Product and Solution offerings, coupled with Services, has played an instrumental role in recovery and ideally ramping up as soon as the situation will allow." Mr Afsal Rasheed, COO - Alhind
Allegro Tours is the largest travel agency in Panama and is the local partner of FCM Travel Solutions, one of the top five global TMCs, reaching a presence in more than 90 countries globally. Allegro Tours has diversified into High-End Leisure as well as a Consolidator model, which means servicing non-IATA and/or small to medium size agencies choosing Allegro Tours’ commercial agreements with applicable airlines for higher commissions. Allegro Tours’ staff now can service and assist a diverse clientele.
With the pandemic, the agency took advantage of the down time to increase the knowledge of the entire Allegro Tours team.
Working jointly with the Sabre training team, a training plan was created for their employees based on reports with top call drivers to the Sabre Help Desk. A diagnostic test was applied to identify the knowledge level of each travel agent. Then, based on the findings, virtual training sessions were delivered on the most common topics for the entire group and each travel agent received a recommendation for an individual training plan to be implemented during the crisis period.
“Thanks to Sabre support and its technology, we have taken advantage of a time that seemed to be unproductive, to train our team and come out stronger once activities in the travel and tourism industry restart”, said Ricardo Zarate, General Manager.
Tour House is one of the top 10 TMC agencies in Brazil, headquartered in São Paulo, with branches in Rio de Janeiro and Bragança.
In 2020, they celebrate their 30th anniversary focused in corporate, events and incentive travel, also providing additional services such as consulting in travel cost reduction. They are the local Egencia partner and Expedia fulfillment services provider.
Like most players in the travel ecosystem, Tour House was affected greatly by the Covid-19 pandemic, having to take several measures to respond to the challenges presented.
Considering every crisis also creates opportunities, they decided to use the time available to upskill their entire team located in Bragança. Sabre provided distance learning trainings on the following topics:
Air reservations (all modules), Fares (all modules), Enhanced PQ, Branded Fares, Air Extras, Ticketing (including installments) and Reissue (QREX and AEX).
In total, 17 employees and 4 leaders were trained and are now ready for the next chapter in the tourism industry.
“We believe we cannot outsource our future to anyone, so we are using this moment to sharpen our edge. In partnership with Sabre, we are improving, training and investing in our employees so they can be more prepared for the recovery and acceleration journey ahead", said Fernando Sampaio, Customer Experience Manager.
