What steps can you take to ensure your travel agency is welcoming to diverse travelers?

1 Assess your current practices

In order to evaluate how your travel agency currently addresses diversity and inclusion in its operations, marketing, and customer service, you can use self-audits, surveys, feedback forms, or focus groups to gather data and insights from staff, clients, and partners. Some questions to consider include: how diverse is your team in terms of background, identity, and expertise? How do you recruit, train, and retain staff to foster a culture of inclusion and respect? How do you communicate values and policies on diversity and inclusion to clients and partners? How do you select, promote, and review travel products and destinations to ensure they are culturally sensitive and appropriate? And how do you handle complaints or conflicts related to diversity and inclusion issues?

2 Educate yourself and your staff

The second step is to invest in education and training for yourself and your staff on diversity and inclusion topics. You can find reputable sources of information, such as books, articles, podcasts, webinars, or courses, that cover a range of topics. These include the benefits and challenges of diversity and inclusion in the travel industry, the different expressions of diversity, such as race, gender, sexuality, disability, religion, age, and more. Additionally, you can learn about concepts like bias, privilege, discrimination, allyship and more. You can also discover best practices and guidelines for providing inclusive and respectful service to diverse travelers. Finally, you can learn about the specific needs and preferences of different groups of travelers like accessibility, safety, language, customs and more.

3 Update your products and services

The third step is to review and update your travel products and services to make them more inclusive and appealing to diverse travelers. Researching and selecting destinations that offer cultural attractions and heritage that reflect the diversity of your clients and the world is a great place to start. You should also work with local partners and suppliers that share your values and standards on diversity and inclusion. Additionally, creating and customizing travel packages and itineraries that cater to the interests, needs, and expectations of different groups of travelers is beneficial. Providing accurate and relevant information and advice to your clients on the cultural, social, and legal aspects of their destinations is also important. Last but not least, you should offer options and flexibility for your clients to choose their preferred accommodation, transportation, activities, and more.

5 Monitor and improve your performance

The fifth step in improving your performance on diversity and inclusion is to set goals, measure outcomes, and make adjustments. This can be done by establishing and communicating objectives and indicators, collecting and analyzing data and feedback from staff, clients, and partners, identifying gaps and opportunities for improvement, recognizing and rewarding contributions, and seeking best practices from other travel agencies and industry leaders.