Interior of the Tourism Management Institute of Singapore
THE National Association of Travel Agents Singapore (NATAS) will be stepping up training courses and releasing an enhanced accreditation programme for agents from June and July respectively.
The improved training courses, aimed at upgrading agent skillsets and increasing the productivity of agencies, will be conducted by the Tourism Management Institute of Singapore (TMIS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of NATAS.
Meanwhile, the new three-tier accreditation framework by NATAS hopes to better recognise the skill competencies of travel agents and is aligned with Singapore’s Workforce Skills Qualifications Tourism Framework national standard.
“(Travellers) are growing to be more sophisticated and have higher expectations of what they want in a vacation. We therefore need to train the staff of travel agencies to be knowledgeable in handling these customers and be able to sell travel experiences professionally,” said Fiona Lim, chairman for manpower and training, NATAS.
Commenting on the new initiatives, Ong Ling Lee, director, travel agents and tourist guides, Singapore Tourism Board, added: “The current travel landscape is increasingly disrupted by changing consumer habits on travel research and booking.
“Within Singapore, manpower constraints also call for travel agents to remodel their business and operations to increase productivity. Thus, it is important to invest in people development to ensure our travel agent workforce has the right set of skills to transform the industry.”
