Job Description – Position Title: Motor Coach Tour Planner
Travel agency has multiple locations - Frankenmuth, Grand Hill, Bay City, and Grand Traverse Travel
Position Purpose
Responsible for identifying key markets for motor coach tours, researching, developing annual calendar, making recommendations to Supervisor, negotiation/contracting tour components and booking group travel arrangements. Travel arrangements may include hotels, tours, motor coach, rail, and cancellation insurance.
Essential Functions and Basic Duties
- Regularly reviews past trip performance, identifies future feasibility for upcoming year and researches new ideas.
- Assigns Tour Director to each particular tour.
- Contracts and communicates with motor coach companies and cancellation insurance company.
- Upon approval by Supervisor, contracts and processes the reservations.
- Prepares all printed marketing materials for individual tours and distributes to offices.
- Loads all tour inventory into TRES (Clientbase Plus) and monitor daily for accuracy.
- Responsible for processing head count/manifests to hotels, motor coach companies, restaurants.
- Maintains contact with all agents on sales status and sales ideas.
- Responsible for maintaining a file of vendor confirmations, check requests, signed contracts, and receipts. Additionally, reminders are to be set in TRES (Clientbase) for future necessary activities.
- Ensures the accuracy of all reservations for dates, accommodations, prices, and spelling of names.
- Prepare Tour Directors packet as well as submit for per Diem post trip
- Prepare and keep medical kits stocked for each trip
- Record and track beverage and raffle monies
- Keep beverages stocked for trips
- Assists with tour content for Travel Press and other print and web marketing
- Schedules and plans annual meeting for Tour Directors
On going Education
- Obtains and conveys information as appropriate by attending webinars, workshops, familiarization trips, reading trade magazines. Specifically, ongoing training of TRES (Clientbase), and supplier booking applications is required.
- Attend expos and after hour functions to develop sales and increase productivity.
In the office
- Assists and supports related departments/branches.
- Promotes goodwill and a positive, professional image and representation of agency.
- Assumes responsibility for establishing and maintaining effective communication and working relations with area staff and with management and vendors.
- Keeps management informed of area activities and of any significant problems.
- Obtains and conveys information as needed.
- Assumes responsibility for related duties as required or assigned which may include miscellaneous clerical tasks, manage special projects as assigned, maintain a clean and secure work area.
Performance Measurements
- Core annual calendar must be developed one year in advance. Additional tours to be added as availability becomes available. Travel requests are processed efficiently and accurately.
- All telephone calls and emails are returned by the end of the business day.
- Travel costs are minimized through effective research of prices and vendor negotiations and promotions.
- Provide Advisors and clients with accurate travel itineraries and documents. Changes and updates are communicated promptly.
- All travel reports and related paperwork are submitted as scheduled.
- Travel documents files are well organized and current.
- Motor Coach Tour Planner is expected to achieve their annual target number which is calculated each December by Supervisor.
Qualifications
- High school graduate with additional related training and travel experience required.
- Knowledge of related computer systems and applications including Microsoft applications. Understanding of TRES (Clientbase Plus), procedures, policies of our vendors, including but not limited to motor coach companies, hotels, theater venues, and sports events.
- Minimum of at least 6 months of related experience and completion of travel school or at least (2) years of related experience.
- Excellent, oral and written communication abilities. Well organized and attentive to detail. Willing to cooperate with and assist coworkers. Strong typing and telephone skills.
- Ability to apply common sense and understanding to carry out detailed but uninvolved instructions. Ability to handle problems involving a few variables.
- Ability to perform very basic math skills including adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing; the four basic arithmetic operations with money.
- Ability to use passive vocabulary; read at a moderate rate; define unfamiliar words in dictionaries or online for meaning, spelling pronunciation.
- Ability to write complex sentences using proper punctuation, adjectives, and adverbs.
- Ability to communicate in complex sentences using normal word order with present and past tenses and good vocabulary.
INTENT AND FUNCTION OF JOB DESCRIPTIONS
Job descriptions assist organizations in ensuring that the hiring process is fairly administered and that qualified employees are selected. They are also essential to an effective appraisal system and related promotion, transfer, layoff, and termination decisions. Well constructed job descriptions are an integral part of any effective compensation system.
All descriptions have been reviewed to ensure that only essential functions and basic duties have been included. Peripheral tasks, only incidentally related to each position, have been excluded. Requirements, skills, and abilities included have been determined to be the minimal standards required to successfully perform the position. In no instance, however, should the duties, responsibilities and requirements delineated be interpreted as all-inclusive. Additional functions and requirements may be assigned by supervisors as deemed appropriate.
In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is possible that requirements may be modified to reasonably accommodate disabled individuals. However, no accommodations will be made which may pose serious health or safety risks to the employee or others or which impose undue hardships on the organization.
Job descriptions are not intended as and do not create employment contracts. The organization maintains its status as an at-will employer. Employees can be terminated for any reason not prohibited by law.