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Kuoni will set about creating a bespoke LGBT training programme to roll out across its entire retail network next month, the operator has announced.
Mark Duguid, vice president, commercial and product management said he would be meeting with Kuoni’s original group of LGBT-trained personal travel experts to develop the content and style of the training.
Duguid revealed the operator’s plans to implement the training across all sales staff to TTG in August and explained how the initiative had been inspired by the TTG LGBT conference, held in July 2015, which was aimed at educating the trade on how to sell travel to the LGBT market.
Speaking at the launch of the Kuoni Worldwide Trends Report 2017, Duguid said that thanks to Kuoni’s work in developing its LGBT customer service skills and sales techniques, the operator had the expertise to create its own training course in-house.
Duguid said: "We realised there was no ‘go to’ resource and so we thought, why don’t create it ourselves - it’s never been done before.”
“We are now looking to take our training to the next level and create training to roll out to our 300 travel experts so they are confident in giving advice to our LGBT customers."
Duguid also explained how Kuoni “no longer assumes” a honeymoon is for a heterosexual couple at the start of the booking process.
According to the Kuoni Worldwide Trends Report 2017, the operator has experienced a 22% rise in bookings for same-sex honeymoons for 2017.
The Maldives, Thailand and the US are its three top-selling LGBT honeymoon destinations.
