Rob Lippitt, Travel Advisor Nottingham
About Me
My name is Rob Lippitt, Future Travel Advisor covering the East Midlands region. I have worked in this role for almost one year and really enjoy the flexibility in terms of working hours, the convenience of a garden-based office with no motorway traffic jams or stressful journeys to work and the challenges of running my own business with the full backing of one of the UK's largest travel organisations.
My Travel Experience
I have worked for 22 years across all aspects of the travel industry, including retail (managing a High Street leisure-based agency), corporate (implants in head offices of major blue-chip companies including Amex, Carlson Wagonlit at the Boots Company), Birmingham airport (all areas of customer service) and airline bmi (head office international sales and marketing roles). I thrive on the challenges of our industry as customer travel patterns (leisure & corporate), booking channels (online based) and supplier profiles (leaner, fitter, more consolidated) are constantly evolving and I need flexibility to move with this. I am also passionate about delivering excellent customer service as a key differentiator to drive long-term loyalty and repeat bookings. I believe that first hand experience of destinations really adds credibility and authority when dealing with enquires and have been lucky enough to travel to many key destinations both long haul (including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Caribbean, India, Thailand, Singapore and many more) and close to home (Europe, Egypt, Israel and more). Although specialising in areas of which I have first hand experience I also constantly use online and other training resources available to broaden my portfolio. I have worked in my previous roles on joint sales and marketing initiatives with several major tourist boards including Barbados, Antigua, St Lucia, Las Vegas, India, Tel Aviv and many more. In addition to my COTAC qualification (Certificate of Travel Agency Competence) I have undertaken ongoing training throughout all stages of my career to keep apace with a rapidly changing environment.
Why Book With Me
I constantly strive to differentiate myself from competitors by adding value, through personal knowledge and expertise and protection (not available online) and convenience (not available at retail agents with fixed working hours and parking/other accessibility drawbacks). As well as mainstream leisure travel I target key sectors including the affluent Gay market, regular bookers in SME businesses and short-break groups. I am constantly adding to this when new opportunities emerge, e.g. potential football World Cup travellers to South Africa in 2010. I strive to be personally accessible to all my clients at all times.
