For anyone that has ever wanted to become a travel agent, I would dare you to work through a day or week during the imminent arrival of a hurricane. Sounds like a silly thing, but a natural disaster, a terror attack, any event plays a huge part in how my industry operates its business.

Preparation

We live in an instant global world today. More today than ever before. I remember flying to Ft. Lauderdale in August 1992, pre computers, pre world wide web, pre cell phones. Booked a convertible, upgraded to an ocean view room at the Sheraton Yankee Clipper. Arrived at the hotel to Armageddon in the lobby. People looked at us like we were crazy…don’t you know the Hurricane Andrew is arriving in the next two days? Uh, no. We had insurance but we couldn’t get a flight out of south Florida at that point. What were we going to do? I remember saying very loudly to my friend – “I am on vacation, I am NOT staying in a shelter”. That was twenty-something me.

Compassion

This week has been a true test of patience and understanding. I understand that you may have a trip booked leaving on September 22nd and you want to know what is going to happen to your trip before the storm even hits the island you are scheduled to go to. Call after call was the same – we have nothing to report yet as the storm hasn’t even hit yet. We are working on people who are supposed to leave this weekend, and more importantly the ones who are there and we need to get them home.

Aggression

There are customers that are leaving this coming week – September 13th for example that are battling a range of emotions that, out of those emotions are causing people to act in ways that are probably not the norm. I was just told that I am holding a customer hostage because she doesn’t want to go to in war zone and I refuse to give her money back to her. She is scheduled to go to Varadero Cuba which, from all accounts is one of the areas that thankfully was not heavily damaged from Irma. With this specific supplier they are allowing changes (not refunds) for passengers travelling up to September 12th. She is leaving on the 13th. She is not entitled to make changes or cancellations…yet. That could change as the reports come in from the suppliers.

Sympathy and Empathy

People were flown home on dozens of relief flights this week. Air Canada, WestJet, Air Transat and Sunwing brought thousands of travellers home to Canada and out of harms way. The way these clients have acted upon their return is, to me a social experiment. There are was one couple who came to the office straight from the airport to tell us about their experience getting on the relief flight. How the staff was helping everyone, how they were boarding up the hotel and taking care of the people, all while they are trying to stay safe at home. There was another couple that came back from the same island, on a different flight and showed up asking for a refund on their loss of two days. I understand that you “lost” two days of vacation, but you were also emergency repatriated back to your home, where you have a roof over your head, food and comfort and not stuck in a boarded up hotel riding out a category 5 hurricane. I wonder what the total overall costs for the relief flights was, not to mention all the refunds they have to give for all the passengers that didn’t get to travel to their planned vacations.

Responsibility

We cannot control the weather. What we can control is how we protect our investments. A travel industry friend just wrote this on my Facebook page – “I still don’t understand how-we insurance everything else, including our lives, to the hilt (for the most) and when it comes time for travel insurance-it’s scoffed off as a non necessity, or we are ‘trying to make a fast buck’ until the shit hits the fan (so to speak) and then it’s everyone’s fault-except the person who declined it in the first place…..sigh”. She is 100% right.  How many times I have discussed travel insurance in my blog posts? Travel agents are mandated by law in Ontario to offer every client insurance. If you decline, you take your investment into your own hands.

We are still working through the wrath of Irma, and we have Jose following her tail, not to mention earthquakes in Mexico. Oh, and Katia…she is the wicked little sister swirling around as well.

I have always said there is never a dull day in the travel industry. I guess you could say that for life in general.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life is a journey not a destination – Ralph Waldo Emerson

In my life’s journey to this point my professional path has been in the travel industry for twenty seven years. Throughout that time I can honestly tell you that I wanted to do something different for about the last 15 years. One could say that it wasn’t the time for me to do something different and they would have been right.

Even three years ago when I went to work for the tour operator, it wasn’t the right time. That company closed and I was back where I started. After months of job searching, openly writing in this blog while I was job searching was a very hard time in my life. Go back and do what I know or keep searching. I did, of course go back to selling travel and becoming the Branch Manager for two years.

During this two year time I was still searching for the right path for my journey to continue. There were some amazing (or what I thought) opportunities that presented themselves along the way. There were hundreds (and I mean HUNDREDS) of resumes and cover letters. There were phone screenings and in the past year several interviews, but no offers. Why wasn’t I getting any offers? The more that happened the more frustrated I was becoming.

These jobs were not meant for you

A few of my close friends told me to take a break. I listened. Three weeks went by and one day in my preview pane was an email from Indeed I was about to delete. But something caught my eye. Something that inevitably changed the course of my journey.

When the time is right, you will know

Everything was different about this experience. I actually knew it was different driving to the interview. I was driving to the interview and Natasha Beddingfield song Unwritten came on the radio. If you are familiar with the song some of the lyrics are:

Drench yourself in words unspoken. Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins. The rest is still unwritten

So here is it is. The next part of my life’s journey will begin on September 25th at We.org as their travel manager. The organization is a movement. A movement for change. A movement to making a difference in the world. A movement for making the world a better place.

Every single person I have shared this with so far has all had the same reaction – this was the job you have been waiting for. One friend said this week, “you know that this is the reason why you didn’t get all the jobs before this one?”

I am closing one chapter in my life which has been a long one. I may write a book about this 27 year part of my journey. But for now, I will look ahead to this new chapter beginning. Just after the Jewish New Year. Seems very fitting. New Year, New Job. New path on my journey of life.

I hope you will continue to follow my journey as I am sure I will have a lot more to share with you.

Live your best life,

Lisa