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hey guys welcome back to the show today
we are talking about
how long does it take to get certified
as
a travel agent so we're going to be
covering
why get a certification if you're in the
travel industry
top three most popular certifications
we're also going to talk about
how long does it actually take to earn
those certifications
and which one might be right for you so
if that sounds interesting then keep on
watching
[Music]
that you understand
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say hello welcome you to our community
and if you're new you probably don't
know me i'm cindy williams i started in
the travel industry
way way way back in 1994
and i've been doing this for over 25
years i own and operate my own
award-winning nationally recognized
travel agency
and i'm also the ceo of careers on
vacation that helps people just like you
learn how to launch grow and supersize
your travel businesses all over the
world
so today we're discussing travel
certifications how long
does it actually take to earn a
certification and diving a little bit
deeper and today we're really going to
focus on the three most popular
and highly recognized certifications in
the industry
and on top of how long does it take
discover maybe which one might be right
for you
if you're thinking about getting
certified as a travel agent so the top
three we're going to be covering today
are careers on vacation the travel
institute and ashworth college
and i'm telling you from the beginning
of course i'm going to be 100 biased
because
i am the ceo of greece on vacation so
but i'm i have no problem sharing my
competitor information because at the
end of the day
i want you to be successful so whichever
one is the right fit for you
i want to connect you with that
information and with that knowledge so
we're going to link everything below too
so quick question for you guys for those
of you that might be watching
that are already travel agents where did
you earn your certification
and did it prepare you to be a travel
agent because that's the other big
question that we're going to kind of
dive in on today is
you know outside of the just learning
how to be a travel agent part some of
those business building things
so i would love for those of you who are
experienced in watching to share that
so everybody can read the comments and
everyone can learn from that too
and by the way if you guys are brand new
and you're just thinking about getting
into the travel industry i want to tell
you about a quick resource
my master class the five shifts to a six
figure travel business and beyond you
can
get a free ticket into that class by
going to the link you can see on the
screen
careers on vacation.com forward slash
masterclass if you're really in that
evaluation phase that
free resource will really help you
decide if getting in the industry is for
you
and all the things that you should be
doing to set yourself up the right way
from the beginning which is so important
so let's dive in way
why not wait why get a certification in
the first place
technically you don't need a
certification in the travel industry so
full disclosure you don't need a
certification but why do people decide
to get certified in our industry
one it really helps you showcase
in your you can really showcase it and
position it in your marketing meaning
it's a great tool to let consumers know
you're qualified
you have training you're ready to assist
and support them
and that certification is an extra level
of credential
that will help you stand out from the
next travel agent that they might be
considering working with
the other thing it really helps you do
is really helps you get more confidence
i can't tell you how many people i see
get into the industry and just get
logins turned on they have no idea what
they're doing
maybe you're watching this video and
going oh my gosh that's me i'm so lost
i'm so overwhelmed i'm so confused
despite what slick marketing would have
you believe
this is not an easy job it takes
skill it takes experience and it takes
some learning
to get into a flow of really doing it
well and then doing it in a big way so a
certification can really help you get
that
base level foundational confidence that
you need to then take the next step of
growing your business
and of course when you have a
certification
one of the things we spend uh time on in
our marketing
machine and teaching our clients to do
is how to
leverage a certification to show people
you're the expert
how to show them you're a leader in the
marketplace of what's available out
there how you can position yourself as
an
expert and that's one of the tools that
you can do it when you have a
certification
so those are kind of the whys to why
people get a certification now let's
talk about time
frames and these are not apples to
apples at all because all of these
programs we're looking at today
are very different not just in their
time frames but in their content
and in how they are run so i'm going to
dive into some of that for you guys too
and hopefully that's helpful
so first and foremost how long does it
take anywhere from three months is the
going to be the shortest time frame
to a year or longer to get a
certification
so careers on vacation is the quickest
at three months um when i built our
program
years ago i really said i don't want any
fluff like people can
take a time management course or a
business e course or
like customer service 101 like we don't
have
any fluff in our program it is literally
like here's what you need to do to be
successful
do these steps get an action set this up
get your marketing machine get your
sales how to be an agent how to book
it's very condensed from that
perspective now that doesn't mean we
don't have a lot of content because
it's packed full every week there's a
module we have online courses
we have private one-on-one coaches that
help all of our clients through
so that's different but it is the
quickest at three months if you are
looking for
a certification that is the fastest in
the industry
that would be a great place to start
travel institute is a 12-month program
and it requires 12 months of experience
so
even if you finish their online content
and you're ready and you take that they
have a test at the end that's required
even if you do those steps you have to
wait to hit that 12 month of experience
level
in order to get your actual
certification so before you can use it
in your marketing tools before you can
talk about it those types of things
you're not going to have that
certification
in hand for about a year so keep that in
mind
again doesn't make doesn't mean it's not
awesome content we're going to dive into
that here in a second too
ashworth college is four months to a
year so there's this an
online program and they basically the
way that they word on their website is
you can finish
in as quick as four months or you can
take as long as a year so it's kind of a
work at your
own pace online type program and you can
finish it
on your own schedule so that one's going
to be four months to a year
so let's break down break these down a
little bit further so now that you know
the time frames you might say oh well
that's fine or that's fine
but let's really kind of peel the layer
back and talk about
what you're going to find in these
different programs and and what speaks
to you and resonates with you
so cruise on vacation and granted i have
not taken these other programs so i am
working off of the information that's on
their website and i encourage you guys
to check that out too
and of course i have more knowledge on
cruise on vacation because we are in
training people every single day so i'm
going to be able to offer you a little
more information where careers on
vacation is concerned
and just know that this other
information is available on their public
websites
so in the careers on vacation program it
is not
an online like program where it's just
online
and you don't have someone helping you
or additional support it's a
mastermind model okay what i mean by
mastermind
model is it really offers that human
element
yes you get online content yes you get
to keep that content for life we update
that
you know whenever we do updates all of
the people that took the program years
ago still get those
updates which is amazing but you
actually get to work with real humans
imagine that and what that could help
you with right
so learning we call our program a
learning while earning mode so
we have the online system that you can
do on your pace you have
live classes you can also go to to ask
questions work with
humans you have a coach where they're
working with you to go what is your
individual goal because i guarantee you
it's probably different than the person
sitting next to you and the person
sitting next to them
we take a very customized approach
because when you're building your
business it's not the same cookie cutter
that
every travel agent out there might want
to do right
um so the reason why we call it a
learning while earning mode
is where other programs will say take
this program and then start your career
as a travel professional
no like ours is like you you can start
your career right now
while you're in the program once you
have certain things set up you can start
selling you can start testing out your
marketing you can start getting your
first
leads and as those come in it's kind of
a beautiful thing to have it happen
while you're in the program because then
you have humans right you can go
help i have a question i didn't think
about this or help what do i do here
even if it's in an online program
somewhere and i guarantee you the
instructions are in the program
it is a really big tool and i learned
this early on for people to go i just
don't know where this is and i need an
answer right now
so we have those online forum boards
where you can go and ask a question and
get an answer back in almost real time
or you can reach out to your coach and
things like that so you won't see things
in our course like
business writing skills time management
the art of listening that kind of stuff
you will see that really finite stuff
that you need to get started quickly so
it's kind of the exact info that you
need to get started
and get into action and that's what
helps escalate the learning process
because you're getting
all of those tools but also because
you're in this mastermind format
you're in a live classroom you're making
friends you're now part of a tribe and
part of a community
this is the other thing our industry
really struggles with and why i put this
whole program in a mastermind format is
because at the end of the day after you
do whatever program you're going to do
you're still at home by yourself in a
silo
and that can feel really isolating so if
you're starting your journey
or even if you're experienced because we
have learning tracks for both
you're starting to make friends and
you're making you know there's a lot of
people that do
trips outside of our our uh classes or
they make friends and they have friends
for life
and that's a beautiful thing because
then you're always bouncing ideas off of
each other for years to come
as you build your businesses which is
really exciting which is really exciting
so think of ours as business building
plus the real world
application part that's what you're
going to get from careers on vacation
now let's dive into travel institute
they have a good core curriculum so they
have that how to be a travel agent type
courses
they do have some extra business e
courses like some of those things i
mentioned earlier like
business writing skills time management
art of listening those are all included
in their program so you're gonna
if those are important to you you're
gonna get some of those extra courses
that
may not be directly relevant to being a
travel agent or you wouldn't need to
sell a trip
but if you've never done it before could
potentially help you out so if that's
something those extra courses would be
valuable to you
know that they have that now the other
big thing to know about the travel
institute is you do have to complete 10
continuing education credits to maintain
your certification so when you are
deciding to go that path with that
certification you just have to know
every year you have to maintain you have
to get those extra 10 continuing
education credits
in order to keep your credentials so
when you're deciding to go down that
path
just understand it's more of a longer
term commitment overall
if you want to keep your credentials
active just so you know
all of that and all the information's on
their website as well um
ashworth college so i've had some i
actually have had
students go through ashworth college and
then come through our program
um their program is all online it's up
to 12 months to complete they call it a
career diploma they don't call it a
certification
so i don't in terms of your you know
really get stuck on the
the the word play there um the other
thing to know about ashworth
is they are really um they
they do a ton of career programs and in
different things they're not specialized
just in travel that's not a good or bad
thing i just think it's worth mentioning
that there also have 106 other courses
of like
how to be this how to do that how to do
that so they do have a lot of
stuff going on they're not really like
100
tailored to travel um i know to keep up
in our industry it's a lot of work it's
a lot of
it's a lot of stuff right so that's one
of those things i just wanted to mention
doesn't mean it's not great
um but they're not really specialists in
travel so
um which one's right for you i don't
know this is going to depend on you
and i want to talk through some things
you should ask yourself to say
okay where should i start my journey or
what certification do i think would be a
great fit
so if you if you want to learn how to be
a travel agent do you want to learn to
be a travel agent or do you want to
learn to be a travel agent plus
how to run an actual business some
people's intention is
i want to be a travel agent and maybe
then i want to look for a job or you
want to work for
an airline or american express traveler
or a big call center or
aaa or something like that i think if
your your end game is to work as a
travel agent for
a like a big box or something like that
then potentially
you know some of these courses could
work really well if you don't care about
having your own business
or working from home or traveling the
world while you travel or having your
own business
so that's that's worth considering so
travel institute and ashworth are more
focused on the travel agent
specific learning versus the real world
application there's not as much of
how do i set up my office from home and
how do i get my marketing
leads set up how do i get leads to come
what do i do with those leads what you
know how do i
all of those marketing pieces and all of
those
best practices for when you have an
actual business in place at your
residence or while you're traveling
i i feel like our program does a
stronger job of that and that's why ours
is more of a hybrid you're going to
learn how to be a travel agent
but also you're going to learn how to
run a business
and be relevant in the online space
which is great like if you can go to a
hairdresser school but if you don't know
how to get clients
you're going to work for the salon
you're going to open your own salon or
you're going to work for the salon or
you're going to do it from home and
and garner up your own clients so it
really is just a matter of what you
envision for yourself for the future i
don't think there's a wrong answer it's
just what's going to be best for you
so those are kind of the the differences
in the program and how i would spell
them out based on
what i know of course on the inner
workings of ours versus the other ones
that are out there
um and it's important to note like
travel agent careers in today's
marketplace
even if you're working for an agency
they're gonna require that you guys
market yourself
so outside of like of course if you're
working for amex or
aaa or one of those guys you're not
gonna have to market yourself because
you show up to work they pay you an
hourly wage and you answer calls and you
do your job right
but if you're going to work for another
agency they're still
the way that the business models work in
our industry especially post 2020
is you're working as an independent
contractor under
an agency whether it's a mom and pop
agency or a large host
you're an ic an independent contractor
you still have to go out and get your
own clients you still have to get
relevant in the online marketplace
you still need that real world
application piece
if you're going to be running your
business from home so just keep that in
mind if you don't want to have to do
more learning
later to actually you know start your
business or before you can actually
start making money then consider that as
well careers on vacation might be a
better fit for you
the other thing you want to ask yourself
is do i prefer 100
online or would i benefit from having a
real classroom available to you some of
you guys might be like i just
prefer online i don't want to go to
online classes i don't care about having
humans help me
that's fine then one of those online
programs might be a great fit for you
but as you get into the industry and
realize how complicated it is or
as you start setting up your
architecture doing the things you need
to do especially on the business side
would you personally feel a benefit from
having
someone you can ask a question to at any
time a classroom available that covers
topics in more detail
yes i learned in the online course how
to book disney cruises groups whatever
but
now can i hop on with a human and ask
questions because i have my first group
oh my gosh
it would be nice to just make sure i'm
doing everything right so
if having that extra layer of human
involvement
in uh the process as you learn it as you
grow
that might be something that you need to
answer for yourself to just know
travel institute and ashworth are online
so cov is more of a hybrid with lots of
human interaction and private coaching
available to go through the differences
there
then the last question is how do you
care about getting certified quickly
like if you're
really taking a leisurely place pace for
your travel business or you're just
considering it more of a
hobby business you're dipping the toe in
your wall in the water going and we'll
see how it goes kind of thing
maybe being on a time crunch doesn't
matter but for those of you who are like
i want a certification i want to show
people i have a certification i want to
use it in my marketing
then ask yourself like how quickly would
i like to be certified what's my goal
for getting certified if it's you know
that more three
four months range careers on vacation is
going to be a three month and then you
have your certification ashworth if you
really
put the pedal to the metal you can work
through their program in four months but
you have up to a year
and then travel institute you is
required 12 months you're not going to
see that piece of paper in your hand
until 12 months so keep that in mind as
well
just in terms of your timeline for your
personal goals
so um many you know
guys many of these clients that go
through ashworth and uh travel institute
we get a lot of them through careers on
vacation
only because it's that whole piece of
they learn how to be a travel agent now
but still
knowing how to set up that online
business so just keep that in mind
also if you are ever going to have the
ambition to have your own business
why not get the how to do it and how to
run my business and how to be relevant
in the online space from the beginning
so you don't end up paying for two
programs versus one program
in the beginning now if you know you're
just going to be super happy working for
you know aaa or amex or something like
that
awesome then one of those other ones
could be an awesome fit or maybe you're
going to work with an agency that does
have some type of
hybrid training model but if you have
the ambition to grow or if you don't
want to be tied to working for someone
else in the long term
that's where you're going to get that
piece in careers on vacation that's the
earning while learning
getting you into action faster getting
relevant in the online space
and of course a real world application
so i told you guys i was going to be
biased but i really
believe in our program in terms of the
differences and when we built it of
course we looked at what was out there
and what people were asking us to do
so that's why that's why it's hard to
compare these right they're not apples
to apples
we were looking at three online programs
there might be different things to look
at
but we're looking at three very
different programs that address things
in different ways and approach things in
different ways so
what i'm encouraging you to do today is
ask ask yourself these questions and go
what is best for me what do i feel like
i need
and then you can start in that place
regardless of whatever program you end
up with
so i would love for you to reflect on
what is best for you
again i have not done these other
programs i am going to put a link down
below
and uh of a comparison chart so you can
see everything that's included
in our careers on vacation program so if
you have conversations or if you check
out the other websites
that way you can easily kind of check
and say what do they have that's
important
what do they have i don't care about and
kind of can go back and forth so i will
add a link in
down for you below to check that check
that out as well but if you've been
following along and you're like oh my
gosh i want to get certified as soon as
possible and yes i need human
interaction and
i want i would benefit from private
coaching and learning that real world
application and
and who doesn't love earning while
earning mode if those things are
speaking to you guys and you
resonate with me i really encourage you
to check out careers on vacation this is
our 12
week mastermind so this is the one that
you guys have heard about
online and it's our most popular program
so there's a little
screenshot there showing you there but
you get all the online curriculum you
get to work with my team who's amazing
the same team that helped me grow my
travel business over the years
and of course you guys know we have all
we're the most reviewed program in the
industry we have well over a hundred
case studies on youtube right now
so definitely go over and check those
out for sure i'm sure there's a story
that's very similar to yours
and uh will probably say you know what i
was like that person too
but i encourage you to check that out
but if you want to apply you can go to
careers on vacation dot com forward
slash ready now
and we'll just talk about your goals if
it is a fit to work together and we can
really help you then we'll talk to you
about applying for the program
if not you'll still get some great tips
and then of course we'll wish you uh
all of the love and success as you move
forward on on your journey so
guys i love you so much i hope this was
helpful for you today to kind of dissect
the different certifications that are
out there and learn
what does the time look like what what
are each one what's each one going to do
for you personally
and i encourage you just keep going if
you have a passion for travel
and you just want to get into the
industry just get started i don't care
what program you start with i love you
and i wish you so much success
no matter where you are in your journey
and i'll see you guys next week don't
forget to
like subscribe and ring the notification
bell and you can follow us at
wanderlustceo also over on instagram and
tick tock we have some fun stuff going
on
always over there too so i'll see you
guys next week bye guys
[Music]
[Music]
hey guys cindy williams here if you
liked that last video make sure you
check out my other content to help you
grow and scale your very own travel
business
and also i invite you to travel around
the world with me and find out what i'm
doing in my portable profitable
award-winning travel business check out
the videos
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