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Travel Consultant
Employer: Expert Africa
Country: Surrey
Salary: Excellent
Hours: Part Time Contract: Temporary
Start Date:
End Date:
Our company
Expert Africa is a market-leading specialist tour operator, with a first-class reputation and a steadily expanding business. We are looking for organised, conscientious team players to join our small, friendly team, based in lovely offices near Richmond.
A demonstrable and enduring passion for Africa is vital, preferably one that comes with some interest in its wildlife, ecology and cultures. A positive, flexible attitude to work and solid personal values of integrity and honesty are essential to any role in Expert Africa.
Nobody in the office works on commission; we focus on offering our travellers the right options for their trip - not merely selling them the first holiday that we can!
Who we're looking for
We have at least one vacancy for an Africa-specialist. For the right candidate(s) there is flexibility in the role - from an entry-level position to a more senior level including product management.
All candidates go through a selection procedure including written tests. Successful applicants need to have very good literacy and numeracy, with excellent written and verbal communication skills.
A detailed working knowledge of the web and SEO issues would be a distinct advantage - as would knowledge of the Travelink reservations system and an acquaintance with Galileo GDS systems.
Candidates with excellent, first-hand experience of Namibia or the Seychelles will be at a slight advantage - although knowledge of Botswana, Zambia and Tanzania are also desirable. Our requirements for precise and current knowledge of Africa's camps, lodges, hotels and travel options will be higher for more senior candidates.
That said, we are aware that few applicants, especially those for more junior posts, will have covered any of these countries in the high level of detail necessary. All our team usually enjoy two two-week educational trips to Africa every year- specifically designed to train them up to a detailed level of knowledge on the countries in which we specialise; new recruits will normally start this travel within their first 9 months.
More senior candidates are likely to have had at least three years experience working for a specialist tailor-made African travel company in the UK - helping customers to design complex itineraries, from initial enquiries to issuing final tickets and discussions after they return. Some may have taken on some product management responsibilities and be keen to have more scope.
We require applicants to be permanent residents of the UK; these are permanent positions.
What the work involves
Most of the team at Expert Africa get involved in most of our work; we all sometimes make the tea, deal with enquiries and bookings, write different sections of the brochure, undertake marketing projects, and work to keep our extensive website up to date.
None of the team at Expert Africa have job descriptions which are fixed in stone; our business is all the more successful because of this flexibility. However, the time that team members spend on the various element of their work varies with their abilities and experience.
In practice, entry-level recruits will spend most of their time learning about dealing with customers and moving our website forward with timely updates.
With more experience, the bulk of our consultant's time is focussed on efficiently handling customers - from their initial enquiries, to putting their trips together, making the necessary bookings, and finally to organising their tickets - and even chatting to them when they get back.
More senior applicants will excel at a consultant's work, and then once they have understand the nuances of our business, they will spend more of their time managing our products and working on projects to drive the business forward. Members of our team aspiring to this level need to be confident, self-motivated individuals who can work effectively on their own, sometimes aiming towards long-term goals.
For the right candidate, there's plenty of scope to gradually develop new areas of the business - and we're not short of ideas!
Travel Consultant application