«Travel manager» educational program: training through professional communication
The scheduled ABT`s «Travel manager» educational program ended on June, 11th. During 28 academic hours the course participants could discuss hot topics, get valuable advice and consultations of experts in business travel and, what is more important, get acknowledged with business trip budgeting, tender organization and conduction, particular aspects of agreements with suppliers, ways of booking services and principles of payment systems operation.
It should be admitted, that the educational course very much reminded professional communication between the participants, and not training. Oksana Perevalova, director of ABT educational programs, explains that this teaching method is more comfortable for its participants: «They can feel free to ask how a certain ambiguous situation can be solved. Besides, a small group of
All teachers shared their knowledge and experience. One of them was Luba Gulbina, operations manager in HRG Russia, an international provider of business travel services. The expert admitted that it was very interesting for her to talk to staff members who could play the role of prospective clients: «It was very valuable and useful to hear how companies settle various questions related to business travel management and to learn how corporate buyer’s employees formulate their requests».
According to Ms Gulbina, the course participants had various levels of knowledge: «Nevertheless, in my opinion even the most advanced lacked understanding of the fact that the issues of business trip arrangement should be examined in an integrated manner, some questions should be settled by several departments in order to take account of all business processes of the company and its needs».
Head of Business Travel in «Kaspersky Lab», Irina Kostyukova, whose presentation at the educational course was devoted to ways of service booking, agreed with her colleague: «The travel team wants to have rational logistics when working with suppliers, and purchase specialists strive for maximum economy. It is possible to meet all demands, but it is preferably one person who should be busy doing it».
According to Ms Kostyukova, a travel manager of the future is a universal employee. He or she is a procurer, an analyst, a strategist and a communicator. He knows how to work with people and has an understanding of how to process data: «Everyone is aware of how to build an internal authorization scheme: to book something, to make orders or payments. And very few people really know how to handle a bulk of financial information. But it is this information that is the key to an efficient travel program and to cost reduction».
Usually qualified specialists attend the «Travel manager» educational course. They have some experience in business travel, some ground work and basic knowledge.
Thus, Maria Milakina, travel coordinator of «ABS-Electro» Group who took charge of this position not long ago, said that the course helped her set the main milestones for her future career and professional growth.
«I now have a clear vision of what the profession of a travel coordinator implies, there is a plan of further actions to improve the quality of work and to increase efficiency of my interaction with the Travel Management Company (ТМС) and so on, — Ms Milakina said. — The atmosphere of the course was informal, the information was assimilated easily, I got answers to all my questions. And the main thing is that thanks to this course I have many new useful business contacts!»
The main Protocol expert of «Sibur» Llc Polina Izyumova also praised the atmosphere of the training course. She decided to attend the course because all tasks related to business travel had been included into her working responsibility.
«The teachers are very open-hearted and ready to share their experience, — Ms Izyumova said. — The number of lecture attendants was appropriate. I think I do have one request — to organize education on weekends or in the morning, because it is rather hard to perceive information in the evening. As for the teaching material: despite the fact that I was already familiar with most aspects, I could clarify important details and nuances and which is more important, to have a discussion with colleagues, how various aspects of business travel are managed in various companies. To my mind, the course will also be useful for those who are not at all familiar with this area of work».
In her turn, Daria Bondareva, administrative coordinator of KPMG, one of the largest auditing and consulting companies, admitted that before the educational course was more engaged in operational work: monthly reports, agreement preparation, collection of statistics.
«I wanted to have another read of the travel policy and the TMC agreement as soon as possible, and to read some literature, — Ms Bondareva explained. — I understand that I still have a lot to learn and to put into practice in the course of time. I highly appreciate the possibility to get acquainted with and to listen to such experienced training specialists like Luba Gulbina, Marina Krechetnikova, Irina Kostyukova, Ekaterina Aleksandrova. This experience is priceless. Each of them spoke about specifics and some work particularities that can come in useful in future. Thanks a lot to this team!»
«For those with little experience such educational course will be a source of valuable information, that you can not find in books, — Ms Kostyukova summed up. — Those who have enough experience can fill gaps in their knowledge with the help of this course and compare their own ground work with best practices of other specialists and find more efficient ones, probably. And even those who do not find anything new during the course should not be sorry for the money they spent. To augment one’s self esteem and to come to the conclusion that you are on the right track is worth much».
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Marina Osipova |