A career in travel & tourism is gratifying, and the contacts you develop are highly transferable wherever you go. This is exactly what your travel agent resume does. The right resume communicates your experience, skills, and potential to the hiring team.
When writing a resume for the travel industry, your specific field experience with an established client portfolio would come in handy.
What if you don’t have one? What if this is your first job in the tourism industry?
In this article, we address how to write a travel agent resume even if you don’t have field experience. Read on!
You’ll learn:
- How to pick the right layout and format for your resume.
- Complete resume examples you could use as a guide.
- How to perfectly write each section of your resume.
- Pro resume tips that get you among the top 5% of candidates.
Also, check out our ready-to-fill resume templates to create a perfect travel agent resume in 10 minutes.
Example of a Travel Agent Resume
Travel agent
dannysteve@gmail.com
(265)827-5263
Professional Summary
A dynamic travel agent with over 7 years of experience in the tourism industry maintained 96% client satisfaction while achieving an $800k sales target in 2022 at MyExpedition. Seeking an opportunity to advance my career in the field utilizing 100+ satisfied clientele at findmytour.com.
Experience
Aug 2016 to Present
MyExpedition
Travel agent
- Awarded the top sales performance in the region in 2021, achieving a 120% sales target.
- Achieved a 4.8/5 direct rating on Google with 270+ mentions.
- Established excellent client relationships while exceeding their expectations in travel arrangements.
- Maintain connections with hotels, airlines, cruises, private jets, and leisure facilities that offer the best value for money.
- Assisted clients’ online bookings for end-to-end international travel arrangements from flights, hotels, and leisure.
Education
Bachelor’s degree in travel and tourism
University of Wisconsin
2012-2015
High school diploma
Stanzon High School
2008-2012
Skills
- Event planning
- Budgeting
- Logistic coordination
- Travel arrangements
- Flight booking platforms
- Microsoft Office
- Event planning
- Time management
- Negotiation
- Attention to detail
- Tour guide
- Hotel receptionist
- Hotel manager
- And more resumes
Travel agents: How much do they make?
According to payscale, the average base salary of a travel agent is $40,000. It could vary from $30,000 to $60,000 based on the candidate’s experience.
However, a candidate with a lucrative client portfolio would negotiate higher pay and incentives.
What Makes an Outstanding Travel Agent Resume?
All the hours you spent making your resume would be in vain if you didn’t know the answer.
What makes an outstanding travel agent resume – from the recruiters’ point of view?
The format is simple. You need to keep your resume short, follow the general resume writing standards, and convince them that you’ll be the best person for the job.
Before start writing the resume, we will quickly look at how to choose the right layout, format, and relevant keywords for the travel agent position.
Travel agent resume layout
Writing your layout first makes it easy to find the information for your resume while also helping you understand and optimize the space requirement.
The layout defines the headings and subheadings on the resume.
Here’s the layout we suggest for a travel agent resume:
- Header with your name and contact information.
- Professional summary.
- Work history.
- Education.
- Skills.
- Additional sections (certificates, languages, and interests).
Travel agent resume format
When you’re writing your experience section – the most critical component of your resume, you’ll realize you have a couple of ways to write it.
The format specifies the sequence in which you’ll write your experience section.
These are 3 standard resume formats in use:
- Reverse chronological format: This is the most common resume format in use. Your most recent experience will be listed first in this format.
- Functional (skill-based) format: Start with your key skills, and then list your relevant experience under those skills.
- Hybrid format: This is a combination of both reverse chronological and functional resume formats.
We recommend using a reverse chronological resume format for all travel agent resumes regardless of the level of experience. One reason is that the hiring managers are most interested in your recent work experience. Another reason is that this format is quite common, and the hiring managers are familiar with it.
Relevant keywords for travel agent resumes
Travel and tourism companies receive hundreds of applications for their job openings, making it challenging for both the applicants and the recruitment teams.
Companies nowadays use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to shortlist candidate applications. Only applications that are shortlisted through the system will be checked manually.
If your resume is not capable of passing the ATS, it will never even reach the hiring manager.
The ATS do the shortlisting with a simple code where they check the content on your resume – cross-check with the job description and the other keywords your hiring team feeds into it.
To pass the ATS test, your resume needs to have a decent number of relevant keywords for the job.
The job advertisement is the best place to start keyword research for your resume. If the job application of a particular company is not strong enough, you can find many quality job descriptions on LinkedIn jobs.
We also have a complete guide on using keywords on your resume if you need more information.
Write Your Header to Start Your Travel Agent Resume
In the resume header, you should write your name and contact information.
There’re a couple of possible mistakes a candidate could make in this section which we have highlighted with the following examples:
Travel agent
justines@gmail.com
(275)827-5264
https://www.linkedin.com/justines
Justine Steward
justines@gmail.com
(275)827-5264
105, Park Street,
Washington DC,
USA
Here’re a few guidelines for writing a perfect resume header:
- Start with the name – write your first and last names.
- Write the job title you’re applying for.
- Write down the best email and mobile number to contact you.
- Do not add your full mailing address.
- If you are active on LinkedIn, put the link to your account.
Write a Professional Summary to Capture the Hiring Manager’s Eye
Every time you meet a client to sell a tour package, you’ll have a sales pitch ready, right?
And most importantly, you don’t use the same sales pitch to every client you meet. You tailor it to their requirement.
Your professional summary on your resume is similar to a sales pitch you write to the hiring manager. It should grab their attention in a couple of sentences and convince them to read your resume further. Also, your professional summary should be tailored to the different companies and positions you apply for.
Here’re some examples:
Rather than writing a generic summary, be specific in your statements – use numbers and add specific information about your achievements and accomplishments to arouse interest.
Write an objective summary for entry-level jobs
If you’re applying for your first job as a travel agent, you may consider writing an objective summary. There’s no difference in the structure of the summary. However, the objective summary simply highlights your academic and professional qualifications together with your passion for the industry.
Leave a Lasting Impression with a Strong Travel Agent Experience Section
How you write your experience section significantly defines how you communicate your fit to the role, whether you’re an experienced candidate or just starting out.
Experience for an entry-level candidate? Yes, you heard it right.
You can’t just keep this section blank, even if you are just starting out. Remember, even if you have zero experience in travel or tourism, you should write your other experience, internships, or project work and how those skills you developed during your work add value to the new role.
The worst mistake you could make here is to write a list of roles & responsibilities from a travel agent job description. No hiring manager is interested in reading that.
If you want to write an experience section that stands out from the rest of the applicants and helps you negotiate better pay at an interview, focus on writing your key achievements and accomplishments in your previous work.
Refer to the following examples:
Experience section for a senior travel agent
Travel agent
DT Consultants
- Provided exceptional customer service.
- Sold tour packages to corporate clients.
- Checked earlier flight availability to booking at the best rates.
- Prepared detailed itineraries reports.
- Sold vacation packages.
- Maintained relationships with rental cars, cruise travel, and air travel companies.
Travel agent
DT Consultants
- Managed over 10 corporate client accounts worth $1M annually, providing reliable and faster business travel solutions.
- Awarded the best corporate travel agent in the region, surpassing the annual sales target by 24%.
- Developed and maintained relationships with 5-star hotels, airlines, and private jets to provide a seamless travel experience for clients.
- Handled client complaints and resolved travel issues by negotiating with third-party service providers.
If you were in a senior position in the company, demonstrate essential management skills in your experience section, such as the size of the team you led, times you managed stressful situations, and incidents you showcased negotiation skills.
Start each sentence with action verbs such as managed, led, developed, carried out, etc.
Read our complete guide to writing achievements on a resume for more examples.
Experience section for an entry-level travel agent
Travel agent
TripEase
- Booked car rentals.
- Worked on domestic travel arrangements.
- Contacted cruise lines for clients.
- Coordinated transportation.
- Scheduled meetings with clients.
- Designed travel brochures for the company.
Travel agent
TripEase
- Booked 200+ airline tickets for domestic and international travels in 2021-2022.
- Upsold site inspection tours worth $200k in the last year, earning a $20k annual incentive.
- Provided excellent customer service achieving a customer satisfaction rating of 4.7/5.
- Made hotel reservations for clients based on their budgets and preferences. Communicated with 100+ hotels and resorts to get the best deals for clients.
- Collected payments from clients in different stages and followed up with emails.
Let Your Education Shine in Your travel agent Resume
You will be required to complete a high school diploma as your formal education for travel agent jobs. However, a degree in travel and tourism would be an advantage.
When writing your education section, use a consistent format to state your high school education, bachelor’s, or any other formal education qualification.
Bachelor’s degree in travel & tourism, 2015-2018
University of Wisconsin
GPA 3.5/4.0
- Customer service
- Corporate communication
- Tourism strategy
High school diploma, 2008-20013
Stanzon High School
- Math
- Accounting
The Top Skills for Your travel agent Resume
To work as a travel agent, you need to possess a set of specific skills. Some of them are technical skills, while others are soft skills.
Identify the right skills to list on your resume. If you do not have a particular technical skill that you find essential for the job, consider acquiring it. There’re plenty of resources online where you can learn these.
Write about 5 to 7 key skills in this section.
Soft Skills for travel agents
- Written communication skills
- Verbal communication skills
- Networking
- Decision making
- Leadership skills
- Conflict resolution
- Destination research
- Problem-solving
- Active listening
- Adaptability
- Ability to work under pressure
- Collaboration
- Confidence
- Attention to detail
- Persuasion
- Negotiation
- Time management
Hard Skills for travel agents
- Strategic planning
- Social media
- Budgeting
- Accounting
- Travel management system (CRM)
- Ticket booking systems
- Reservations management
- Travel insurance management
Additional Sections for a travel agent Resume
From the beginning, we didn’t want to create just another resume. We wanted to make one that is better than 95% of other travel agent resumes – one that you will get 10 times more interviews – one that you can confidently negotiate better pay.
To do that, writing a couple of additional sections that grab the hiring manager’s attention is important.
These sections make your resume noticed by the recruiter on the first read.
Here are some examples of additional sections for travel agents:
- Computer skills & certifications
- Extracurricular activities
- Awards & media recognition
- Languages
- Interests
Computing skills & Certifications
A travel agent gets to work with many computer systems and software. Having a basic understanding of computer programs and how to learn new software would be a valuable skill. If you have completed any course or program about basic computer skills, you may list it here.
In addition, there are highly targeted skill certifications for travel agents. Some of these are industry specific, while others are mandatory requirements to work as a travel agent in certain jurisdictions. Check what skill certifications are recognized by your employer.
Here are some valuable skill certifications for travel agents:
Languages
We have seen hiring managers referring to some candidates as “that candidate who speaks French”. No hiring manager mentions a candidate with a degree in travel & tourism because everyone has it.
Your language skills are precious to working as a travel agent as you’ll be working with people who speak different languages.
For certain travel agent positions, proficiency in some languages would be mandatory.
When listing your languages section, state the level of proficiency in each language so the hiring manager gets a clear idea about your skill.
Here is an example:
English Native
French Fluent
Spanish Intermediate
English
French
Spanish
Interests
If you’re writing your interests on the resume, make sure those skills set you apart and are relevant to the job.
Do not put any information that doesn’t add value to your profile.
More Tips to Improve Your travel agent Resume
- Don’t rely on your instincts – use Grammarly to proofread your resume.
- Mention the courses you have taken and completed. State a possible completion day for those which are not yet completed.
- Your experience in sales – skills in communication and negotiation are key for success as a travel agent. Demonstrate them throughout.
- Use a modern resume template to create the travel agent resume.
Write a Cover Letter that Complements Your Resume
The success of a travel agent application is not all about the resume – there’s one more component to it: the cover letter.
A cover letter is a one-page document that showcases the candidate’s interest in the position. In this, the candidate’s key skills, experience, and career objectives should be highlighted.
Also, if there’s a specific reason for you to apply for the organization, that would be a valuable addition to the letter. However, make sure the content is authentic.
Keep your cover letter to about half a page with 3 or 4 short paragraphs. Pages-long cover letters are not a thing in today’s recruiting, and hiring managers don’t have time for it anyway.
Including a cover letter in your application is always safe, even if that is not explicitly mentioned in the job advertisement.
If you’re overwhelmed by the amount of work trying to apply for multiple jobs writing tailored cover letters, try our cover letter builder for a change. You can create stunning cover letters with the same template you used to create your resume within a few minutes.
FAQ
What does a travel agent do?
Travel agents plan and execute travel arrangements for tourists and corporate clients. Some travel agents provide a complete travel solution, including all related services such as flight booking, hotel booking, car rental, cruise rental, event planning, excursions, budgeting, and consulting. Certain travel agents provide only specific travel services.
How to get my first job as a travel agent?
Travel agents need knowledge of the travel and tourism industry and experience in sales. If you have a high school diploma, you can become a travel agent by gaining experience in the field. A bachelor’s degree in a related field would be an advantage for your career.
Further, there’re highly demanding skill certifications that could give you a head start.
Even if you do not have travel & tourism industry experience, your experience in sales or hospitality could also be used to convince a hiring manager. When applying for a travel agent job, you should prepare an impressive resume and a cover letter tailored to the job you’re applying for.
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