What it's like to be a travel agent: I’m passionate about travelling

She grew up listening to her grandfather Bob Barnes’ stories of expeditions around the globe during his time with the Royal Navy.

Since then Abi has visited around 42 countries and now works as a travel expert at Destina by Good Travel in Hagley.

“I have always loved travelling and everything to do with travel. I would listen to my grandad’s stories of all of the places he visited while in the Navy and I decided I wanted to go to all of the places he had told me about,” explains the 35-year-old.

Eager to get as many stamps in her passport as possible, Abi began working at Sunworld Travel in Birmingham in 1999, at the age of 17, and studied for an NVQ level 2-3 in travel and tourism.

After two years, she left to work at British Airways first taking up a position in one of the airline’s travel shops before later joining the cabin crew based out of Gatwick and Heathrow.

“This was a dream come true because I was flying all over the world and getting paid to do it,” says Abi, who was part of the long-haul crew travelling to destinations such as Thailand and Australia.

After five-years of globe-trotting as a flight attendant, she joined Mercian Travel, now Destina by Good Travel, in Hagley.

She spent six years at the travel agency in before becoming operations manager for its parent firm Good Travel Management.

After a spell as a honeymoon specialist at Pure Destinations in Edgbaston, she returned to Destina to take up the position of head of leisure travel in March this year.

“I love travelling and enjoy nothing more than sharing my travel experience and knowledge with my team and our clients.

“I’m just really passionate about travel and if I didn’t work in the travel industry, I don’t know what I would do,” says Abi, whose most memorable travel experience has been driving the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles in an American Dodge Challenger muscle car.

Her day-to-day duties see her overseeing the team of four travel consultants in Hagley and providing advise on destinations and products. She also spends time meeting with travel operators to ensure they can offer the best deals possible to customers.

Well-travelled Abi says it would be too difficult for her to pick a single favourite destination because she has so many but tells us a recent trip to Bali was better than she could ever have imagined.

“I spent three weeks there last year. I had always wanted to go and it completely exceeded my expectations. It was stunning.

“It had something for everyone, a fascinating culture, great night-life, it was fantastic,” says Abi, who lives in Edgbaston.

She tells us that far-flung destinations and cruises are popular with customers at the moment as well as traditional package holidays.

“We do a lot of tailor-made itineraries. We are seeing a lot of people going to places like Canada and Australia and on cruises. Package holidays are coming back more because there are companies like Jet2.com offering more competitive deals which are better value than buying flights and hotels separately. South-East Asia is becoming really popular and Iceland is extremely popular because so many people want to see the Northern Lights.

“We are also seeing more eco-tourism. People no longer want to just flop on a beach, they want to see something. Wildlife watching, like going to Malaysia to see orangutans, is big at the moment,” explains Abi.

The rise of the internet has seen more people book their own holidays online but Abi says travel agents still have a vital role to play.

She believes they have the expertise to build detailed itineraries to exactly match the dreams of their customers and can also provide them with peace of mind when taking a trip.

“People are more vary now because of everything that is going in the world at the moment so they are preferring to book through travel agencies because of the financial protection we offer and also because they know they have someone to come back to if there are any issues.

“We do get a lot of people playing travel agent – we will send them an itinerary and they will look online and say they’ve found it cheaper. If it’s like-for-like we will price match. But we will go the extra mile for people. We can help with special meals, special assistance, we offer a concierge service so we can book activities, excursions and restaurants – we are a one-stop shop.

“The internet has changed the way we work too. We used to hand write airline tickets but now everything is done online. We get a lot of email enquiries but we still do a lot of business face-to-face too,” says Abi.

The travel industry is also facing fresh challenges such as destinations that were once popular with tourists falling out of favour due to safety concerns while the impact of Brexit on exchange rates has caused prices of holidays in western Europe to soar.

“Destinations such as Turkey, which has always had so much to offer tourists, aren’t as popular because people are worried about terrorist attacks,” she explains.

For Abi the best part of the jobs is knowing they have helped create someone’s dream trip that will stay with them for a lifetime.

“I love seeing the team getting excited about the different destinations and I love it when a client comes back and tells us how much they enjoyed a trip and our recommendations,” says Abi.