Q: Christian, congratulations on getting the Chairman’s role. Did it come as a surprise?
A: I’ve been one of the two Vice Chairs for a number of years now so I guess to some extent it was a natural progression.
We’ve also got a number of new directors who will add their expertise and further extend the industry representation at Board level.
From the board’s perspective, it makes sense to have someone in the Chair who’s got a bit more tenure and experience. I’m very honoured and privileged to be given the role and to be working with my fellow Directors to deliver for members.
Q: Is it a changing of the guard or just a natural progression from what the board has been doing over the last few years?
A: More the latter, I think. Obviously with any sort of volunteer board like ATIA there’s always going to be change over time and, as a Board, we are always looking at renewal which is important to ensure we reflect the membership base.
Tom (Manwaring, retiring chairman) did an amazing job in steering the organisation through the pandemic but his circumstances have changed so it was the right time for him to step out of that position.
I think it’s an exciting time for the organisation as well. We’ve rebranded from AFTA to ATIA and the makeup of the board has changed now to better reflect the diversity of the travel sector and our membership base.
Q: What are some of the challenges that you see facing the industry?
A: Dean (Long, ATIA CEO) and the team are very actively involved with government ensuring that we’ve got the right relationships in place. Government doors are often revolving so we’re making sure that we’ve got the right contacts and relationships to tackle the things that are coming our way.
We know that the issues around the lack of staffing doesn’t have a short term solution so that’s going to be an ongoing issue. I think we need to work out how, as an industry, we can really position travel to attract people into seeking a career.
Q: Do you think travel is no longer seen as an attractive career choice?
A: I do think we’ve got a bit of an identity crisis, to be honest. There’s a bit of a hangover from the pandemic when travel was seen as high risk, because so many people were affected in their employment through that time.
It’s left a big hole in the industry where people haven’t come back and we need to be able to address that. I know every industry you talk to seems to be battling to find people and travel is just one of those.
We need to be able to find a way to attract talented people into the sector and really see it as a career opportunity. I think there’s definitely a role that ATIA can play in that regard.
Q: So how do you make a job in travel attractive?
A: I think to some extent we need to bring a bit of the fun back. When I joined the travel industry in the early 1990s, travel was fun, the industry was a lot of fun and it was a great product to be selling.
Back then you went into travel because you were passionate about it, you found it interesting and it was really challenging. A lot of that hasn’t changed.
If you talk to young people now who are coming out of school and looking at their career, whether they’re going to go into TAFE or they want to get out into the workforce in some sort of traineeship, one of their passions is travel.
So we’ve got the foundations, but how do we actually flip the switch and start them thinking that a career in travel is going to be rewarding? I don’t have the answers right now but it’s certainly something that we can look to tackle as a sector.
Q: Is the future looking bright for travel and travel agents, despite the staff shortages?
A: I think so, there’s no signs of it slowing down at all. I think if we look at the challenges we have had over the last few years when travel was taken away, consumers have an even greater appreciation for their ability to travel and they’re taking those opportunities.
We also know that the whole booking process for travel is more complex than what it used to be. So the role of the travel agent is becoming even more important.
There’s a huge opportunity for us to really start to demonstrate the value and the expertise that we possess in the sector and to really start maximising those opportunities.
Q: Finally, we have the National Travel Industry Awards (NTIA) coming up. What can we expect this year?
A: I think NTIA has become a great celebration of the industry and it’s fantastic to see that many people gathering year on year to celebrate excellence.
It’s a bit cliched to call it ‘travel’s night of nights’ but that’s exactly what it is. It is our Oscars and people really do value it.
The 2024 NTIA’s will be held on October 26 at ICC Sydney with the inaugural Beyond Borders Travel Summit taking place the day before.
