When I was pregnant with my first daughter in 1992, I remember sitting for my CTC exam, and my sweet proctor was knitting a blanket for her. I still have the blanket, well-worn and well-loved – and my CTC – equally worn and loved. Nearly 20 years ago the career path of any travel professional with an eye on management or an executive level position included certification from The Travel Institute. It was a given. Oh, how things have changed. There are a lot of bright shiny objects in our industry – and the path to certification, and the career prestige it meant that was once so clear to me isn’t so clear anymore. Our mission is to change that.

Recently Tony Gonchar, the CEO of ASTA, gave an interview to Travel Market Report discussing the successes and challenges that ASTA faces. At The Travel Institute, we face much of the same challenges; the most crucial one being, in a word, relevance. Gonchar discusses it in the last point of his interview:

ASTA stands for the American Society of Travel Agents, but a lot of people think the term travel agent is passé and should be retired. Will ASTA ever weigh in on the debate? 

Gonchar: I think we will. We’ve already spoken about this at our board level. It’s very easy to swap out the vernacular as I’m doing in our conversation; I can say agent then advisor; I can decide we’re going to change the name in ASTA from Agent to Advisor.

But it really means nothing at the end of the day, unless there is some bar that an agent needs to jump over in order to become an advisor.

This comes down to the concept of accreditation, certification.  With almost any other professional industry, there are accreditation hurdles before someone can take on a (professional) label. We have the Travel Institute hurdles as they relates to things like CTAs. But very few people are pursuing that these days.

The industry is crying for some level definition. ASTA would very much like to participate or perhaps lead the charge on what those definitions are. That’s something for the board of directors to work out, and I, as their CEO, to execute.

Wait. What was that again?

I had to re-read that bit about “very few people are pursuing their CTA these days” and “the industry is crying for some level definition and that ASTA wanted to participate or lead the charge on what those definitions are.”

In fact, I had to read it a few times, and then go have a pumpkin spice latte, and then come back and read it again. Yep, there it was. It still read the same, and I wasn’t a fan of the message. So, I penned a response to the author, Dori Saltzman:

At The Travel Institute, we’d like to report that enrollments in our Certification Programs – Certified Travel Associate (CTA), Certified Travel Counselor (CTC) and Certified Travel Industry Executive (CTIE) are very strong for 2011, and we’re looking at an even stronger 2012 as we roll out more benefits for certified travel professionals and our valued members. We’re delighted that our students are committed to showing their clients, suppliers and colleagues that they value professionalism at the highest level, and certification matters.

Our members and industry partners have lauded the enhancements and changes we made in 2011 including adding a new online university (Communiversity) with over 1200 courses in technology, social media, marketing, sales, customer service and business, as well as introducing a more formalized Professional Educators Program, bringing the best and brightest minds together in one place to educate and stimulate lively exchanges of ideas and best practices through webinars, podcasts, blog posts, forum discussions and whitepapers. In addition, in January 2012 our entire catalog of Lifestyle Specialist and Destination Specialist courses will be online and included in our Premium Membership category, making them more accessible and available than ever before.

In short, we’re STILL the education and certification destination for travel professionals – agents, entrepreneurs, suppliers and executives from all corners of our industry.

We agree, as Mr. Gonchar concludes,  that there is a need for continued consumer education and awareness that the certified retail travel professional is alive and well, and has been transformed from the “order-taker” of yesterday to the savvy marketer, communicator, information-sifter and trusted key resource of today’s traveler, both now and in the future. We would welcome ASTA’s partnership and assistance as The Travel Institute continues to lead that charge, as we have since 1964 when The Travel Institute was founded.

Best, Chelle

As I reiterate to Ms. Saltzman, however, and to paraphrase Mark Twain, “Rumors of our Demise Have Been Exaggerated.”