Inbound tour operators are struggling to recruit tour consultants while the consultants entering the sector lack the skills needed for the job.

Martin Wiest, CEO of Tourvest Destination Management, says it’s impossible to recruit tour consultants. “Currently we have several jobs advertised for these roles and we find it very challenging to find the calibre of people Tourvest requires.” Both Jenman Safaris HR Manager, Sandra Falkenstein, and Diana Smullen, Director at Hospitality Afrika, also say they battle to find senior tour consultants.

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The biggest gap in terms of skills is a lack of adequate destination knowledge, while operators point out that many tour consultants have not travelled themselves. “You don’t know Africa if you haven’t travelled Africa. For someone to be a good senior tour consultant, you need to understand Africa,” says Falkenstein. Smullen adds that it’s difficult to find consultants who can slide into an advisory role with confidence and with local knowledge. She adds that while some graduates have computer and admin skills, they lack destination and product knowledge.

According to Wiest, the lack of qualified tour consultants is in part caused by the lack of focus on inbound tourism at a training level. “The focus is only on outbound in the curriculum and the truth of the matter is the whole industry is suffering,” says Wiest. “Tertiary and secondary education needs to adapt curriculums to include not only retail travel but inbound travel also,” he says. Smullen also argues that colleges are currently not doing enough to equip graduates with product and destination knowledge. “In my humble opinion, they are failing dismally.”

To address the shortage, operators are choosing to hire for attitude and a willingness to learn and rather train their consultants in-house. “We have found that through both our own learnership programmes we are able to find good people and train them accordingly in-house,” says Wiest.

Falkenstein says many graduates do well in a junior tour consultant’s position. “We like taking on graduates or interns to train them as tour consultants to become experts of our Jenman brand.” She says, however, that most of these candidates choose to move to other departments into more intermediate roles. “We do like people to grow,” she says, adding that everything is teachable and that they look for candidates who are keen to learn.

Smullen also points out that proactive tour consultants can educate themselves. “There is a plethora of reading material (books, magazines, brochures and the Internet) for keen, serious and proactive consultants to drastically improve their general tour and safari knowledge,” she says.

Both Wiest and Katja Quasdorf, Product & Marketing Director at Jenman Safaris, argue that the requirements for work visas are also compounding the problem. “We are experiencing vast difficulties getting people with foreign language skills,” says Quasdorf. “The regulations for the critical skills visa seem to be ever-changing and we haven’t been able to employ anyone who required a visa since July 2015.” According to Wiest, a relaxation on skills-based work permits would also allow for travel exchange programmes, which would encourage effective skills transfer.