Jose Cofone, a senior account manager in the leisure travel division at recruitment agency New Frontiers, will be writing regular comments for ttglive.com. This is his second column. 


New Frontiers currently receives approximately 1000 CV’s per week and roughly half of those meet our registration criteria. Of those CV’s, the quality and breadth of experience is at a consistently higher level than I have seen for a long while.

The current climate has given companies an opportunity to also improve for the future. With the quality of job seekers being so strong, this is a once in a lifetime chance to strengthen their sales work force in particular.

Valentines Day this year was my nine year anniversary at New Frontiers. Throughout my many, many year’s experience here, I have never known the market as challenging as it currently is. Despite this, there are still some great opportunities available to the travel industry.

My last article touched upon the sales opportunities that travel consultants have to maximise in order to increase their earning potential. Pushing ancillaries like airport car parking, etc and really focusing on their proactive selling skills with call backs to prospective customers. 

With some larger companies making wide scale redundancies, really talented staff have been lost and picked up by much smaller businesses making the most of the opportunity. Watch the smaller companies! They will be the serious competition of the future. I recently placed a lady with eight years experience who has travelled to over 50 countries. With such strong experience and wonderful personality, I knew that it would not be long before she found a new job. I am sure she will be a superb asset to her new company.

I read an interesting article in the broadsheets this weekend regarding a strategy being utilised by a Japanese electronics giant. The company has ordered their mid to high-level managers to each spend at least £1000 of their own money products made by their company. The Oriental business model is one of long-term growth over short-term gain but even they are looking to new ways to generate more income. How long before travel companies start doing the same?

How many readers would consider booking a holiday with their company (if they haven’t already) and would be willing to forgo any in-house discounts that they would normally receive? Would any travel companies consider insisting their own staff book with them?

I would be interested to hear your thoughts - please leave a comment below.