Tour operator seeks to educate agents about Asia

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InsightTravel agent training about the vast continent of Asia is not up to par with training for selling Europe and many other worldwide travel destinations, said Mark Yacker, North America director for Travel Indochina, a tour operator that has operated small-group tours and FITs to Asia since 1993.

To help remedy that, the company started Asia Guru, an agent training program that familiarizes agents with Travel Indochina products and also covers destination information about major Asian countries.

"A lot of it came from feedback from agents I've spoken with," Yacker said. "Agents said they were aware of programs such as Aussie specialists but that there isn't a lot of training available for Asia. So we did some research and didn't see much offered on sel ling Asia, and decided to take it on ourselves."LauraDelRosso

The free online training course is available in three levels. Bronze Tiger is an introduction to the company and the destinations of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Silver Buffalo covers China, Thailand, India, Japan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mongolia and Bhutan. The third level, Golden Dragon, is devoted to river cruises in Asia.

Once agents complete the three levels, they are certified as a Travel Indochina Asia Guru. Those who complete the Bronze Tiger course by Dec. 31 will be entered in a drawing to win one of 10 $50 Visa gift cards.

Yacker said that Travel Indochina's hope is that agents will improve their product knowledge and more "skillfully" sell Asia to their clients.

"We're seeing a definite increase in demand for Asia travel, but some agents have a lack of comfort in speaking about Asia to their clients," Yacker said. "It's certainly not as popular a destination as Europe, and the training for Asia is not at the same level. But we're seeing more agents very interested in learning about Asia, because they recognize that more of their clients want to go to those destinations."

See www.asia-guru.com.

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