Educational trips to amazing destinations are major perks of working in the travel business, and no doubt a source of envy to workers in other industries.

In the next 10 weeks alone, 103 Barrhead Travel employees from across various divisions of the organisation will visit 12 different destinations on 17 familiarisation trips to places as diverse as Nova Scotia, the Maldives, Jamaica and Disneyland Paris. It’s really no wonder that travel is seen as a glamorous industry, is it? Yet fam trips are so much more than jaunts to exotic destinations.

Firstly, they’re great for building relationships with suppliers. So often, because Barrhead Travel is so large, our people on the front line don’t have the chance to meet tour operators and tourist boards in their day-to-day jobs. Spending time with them on a trip is invaluable – they buy into the brand far more.

Very often, they’ll feel more at ease asking questions on an informal basis that will help them advise customers present and future. Plus it goes without saying that seeing destinations and experiencing products brings them to life, and our staff members can then enthusiastically recount their experience to their colleagues and clients back home.

Educational visits can be used, in part, to thank our colleagues for a good job done and to motivate them to sell new destinations. If one of the team is selling a lot of a particular type of holiday, but hasn’t visited it, then their personal development plan is updated so that they can be considered for future trips.

Similarly, if they decide that they would like to specialise in a certain area of travel, a fam trip can be the quickest way to get them up to speed, far better than an online training course.

Using a fam trip as an incentive to sell a destination or product, with the reward being a trip to see it for themselves, is an invaluable motivational tool. The rivalry between salespeople vying for a special trip has to be seen to be believed.

As Barrhead Travel continues to grow, they are also an excellent way to bring geographically diverse team members together to get to know one another.

Barrhead Travel never loses sight of the fact that our partners invest vast amounts of time and money in hosting fam trips, and we plough considerable amounts of time, resource and money into making them happen too.

It’s always our intention to ensure that sales increase as a result – and they always do. It’s what we’re in business for, after all.

Globetrotting it may seem to some, but long live the fam trip – a completely necessary part of an agent’s training and development, and the very best way to motivate, appreciate and educate your valued team members.