STILL standing proud at 43 years of age, Chan Brothers Travel may be one of the longest-standing travel agencies in Singapore, but it sure is no old fogey.
Its well-developed business-to-consumer (B2C) website, chanbrothers.com, raked in 25,000 bookings online and close to $30 million in sales within its first 11 months in 1999. In 2002, it launched Asia's first discount airfare web portal, chanbrothersflights.com.
However, the Internet will not replace the human touch, said Ms Jessica Chang, 46, head of human resources at Chan Brothers.
She told my paper last week: 'Most customers still personally make their way to our offices to ensure everything is fine, even if their first point of contact with the agency is the website.' CTC Holidays, another local travel agency my paper spoke to, agreed, based on their experiences.
What's more, web-savvy employees are needed to mantain and service the B2C sites.
Currently, there is a lack of talent in the industry, and the Tourism Management Institute of Singapore (TMIS) hopes to train enough people to help fill some 100,000 newly created jobs by 2015.
The industry needs talents like tour manager Mr Patrick Ong, 32. He was leading a group of some 30 Singaporeans across western Europe in April when one of them received news of her sister's sudden death.
'I had to arrange for her to be flown home immediately from Zurich in Switzerland without disturbing our itinerary,' he recalled.
He managed to find her a seat on Swissair that very night, and the rest of the tour group proceeded to Germany smoothly.
This led tour group member Mr William Tan, 57, a businessman, to commend Mr Ong for being 'able to handle unforeseen circumstances' in a professional manner.
Retiree Ms Sally Tan, 54, was also full of praise.
'When the local guide in some of the countries we visited gave perfunctory commentaries, he stepped right in and took over. He's the best tour leader I've met so far,' she said.
On top of hospitality, outbound travel service providers can also be relied upon in times of crisis.
When the Sichuan earthquake struck on May 12, three tour groups of about 60 Singaporeans travelling with CTC Holidays were stranded in different parts of Sichuan, China.
Ms Wee Hee Ling, 44, managing director of CTC Holidays, said: 'A handful of us in the Singapore office came together as a crisis management team. Our lines were also open 24/7 to the relatives of those 60.'
Thanks to resourceful planning, all the tourists returned to Singapore unscathed.
Besides that, Ms Wee, who isn't afraid to show that she is big on grooming emerging talents, has already shortlisted two potential successors.
CTC Holidays also takes in 10 management trainees each year.
'It doesn't matter whether they hold a degree or not. All management trainees must start at the counter so that they come to understand not just the consumer, but also the problems their frontline service colleagues face,' Ms Wee explained to my paper.
The deal-maker for some potential industry leaders? Attitude.
Ms Wee said: 'Some of the CTC Holidays supervisors came in with 'O'- or even 'N'-level certificates and started as junior counter staff, but as long as they perform well, we'll groom them for managerial roles too.'
