Why Hire A Travel Director?

by Serenity J. Knutson, editor, Midwest Meetings Magazine, www.MidwestMeetings.com

Even the best meeting planner can't be in more than one place at a time. For some tasks, you need onsite help. But not just anyone will do. When it's your hard work and reputation on the line, you need a professional.

Enter the freelance travel director. Often the answer to a meeting planner's need for qualified, onsite meeting management professionals, travel directors were once hard to find. Through the International Network of Travel Directors (INTD) and their launch of INTDONLINE.COM, planners have access to experienced travel directors who provide services for meetings, events and incentive trips around the world. Planners can search for a travel director based on location, expertise, employment and more.

"That was a key issue: having staff, finding staff, not paying a fortune to interview," says INTD's Director of Development Megan Moiles. She envisions "one network, so everyone knows each other, so everyone has one core place for resources, for work, and basic networking."

Once you find them, what can you expect when you hire travel directors?

Experience...

When turning over a portion of your event to someone else, there's no substitute for experience. "I have, in the past, brought staff onsite who were not professional travel directors, and they ended up taking more of my time because they didn't know what they were doing," says Kate Lichter, CMP of Meetings A La Carte, Inc.

Many travel directors entered the profession through past experience in various segments of the hospitality industry. For Emily Robinson, freelance Travel Director, a personality test led into a luxury hotel job, where she saw onsite planners and travel directors at work. After speaking with a planner, Robinson decided this work was the path for her. "I've loved it ever since!" she says.

Steven Peck, freelance Travel Director, discovered meetings and events in 1996. On New Year's Day in 2000, he became a full-time travel director. "It was the lure of working with people and the excitement of traveling to new places that solidified my desire to get into the business full-time," Peck says.

Enthusiasm...

Unique to freelancers is the self-chosen nature of the job. "This is what they do," Lichter says. That means a travel director's enthusiasm will likely outweigh that of a typical temp. Robinson's personal motivation as a travel director lies in what she can do for others. "I want to help people," she says. "When it's an incentive trip, when I have guests coming up to me, saying, 'Thank you so much for making this week amazing,' it makes me feel good that I did help somebody."

"The biggest benefit I offer my clients is my passion for making a difference for the attendees," Peck adds. "It might be the simple smile as I direct people to breakfast [or] the kind words I articulate as they collect their luggage and step on their motor coach heading to the airport at the end of the program."

Knowledge

A professional with real-world knowledge of the industry can make planners look like stars. With diverse backgrounds in hospitality and other fields, travel directors often bring valuable knowledge encompassing multiple facets of meetings.

"Working a lot on the transportation team, I am aware of the cost differences between equipment," Peck says. "I am quick to point [out] opportunities to reduce expenses by maximizing equipment usage and eliminating unnecessary vehicles." After a bus boarding nightmare during an event two years ago, Lichter last year opted for a professional travel director. "One travel director handled the entire thing," she says. "She boarded 1,000 people onto buses in about ten minutes. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen, and I wanted to kiss her feet at the end of the night."

When you hire a travel director, you have professional experience available to handle the "little things" that make a big difference. "Another body doesn't do you any good if they don't know what they're doing," Lichter explains.

Service...

You likely want staff members who go above and beyond. That's what you get when you hire a travel director. Peck recalls an incident when one couple arrived an hour after their cruise liner departed. After learning of their dilemma, he was on the spot to help out. "I waited for them at baggage claim, booked flights transporting them to the next port of call, reserved them a room in my hotel and arranged for my colleagues to meet them at the airport on the following morning," he says. He also personally escorted the couple to the airport for their 6:00 a.m. flight.

Robinson has found she can save her clients (aka meeting planners) a small fortune through something else she loves to do: photography. At a recent event, the planner had to cancel a professional photographer due to last-minute budget cuts. Robinson, who always keeps her camera equipment on hand, was quick to save the day. "It was really nice to be able to say, 'I can do that,'" Robinson says.

Savings...

Planners who hire travel directors on a regular basis might say they're worth their weight in gold. For her last conference, Lichter hired four. "It ensured, absolutely, a well-run meeting, and it made everything look seamless to the attendees, and it was extremely efficient," she says.

The value of a travel director is justification enough for many clients. In addition, many travel directors take personal initiatives to cut costs while they're on the clock. Saving money for clients is second nature for Peck. For a past event, given three hundred euros for taxi fare, he chose a train for most of the trip instead. "Final cost for two train tickets and two short cab rides was 60 euros," he says.

Connections...

INTD is working to create connections between meeting planners and travel directors - to act as "a hub for travel directors to network, and allow meeting planners in that mix," Moiles says. "There has been a gap that we are hoping to fill," she explains.

So, why hire a travel director for your meeting? "Hiring them is good for you, it's good for them, it's good for your clients, and it's something I wish I had known about ten years ago," Lichter says.

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