Like what you just read?
Subscribe to our weekly blog for all your travel management and procurement news, views and facts.
Diversity Dictionary: What is a fam trip?
This week’s essential entry in the Diversity Dictionary asks… what is a fam trip in the world of travel management?
In this instance, fam is short for ‘familiarisation’ – therefore a fam trip means familiarisation trip. Travel agents go on familiarisation trips to learn first hand about the locations, airlines, tours, hotels and cruises they sell. This could mean staying at hotels, assuming the role of a safari goer, attending a cultural event or a guided tour of a country or city by the tourism board. Fam trips offer actual customer experiences to travel agents, so they can in turn best advise and recommend experiences to their customers. Fam trips are an excellent way for travel agents to know what they’re talking about!
However, it’s not a free holiday for travel agents. Fam trips involve a lot of hard work to fully capture every aspect of the travel experience. There’s often a lot of information to capture and very little downtime! Having said that, it’s not the worst thing in the world to do as a part of your job.
Many hotels, tours and cruise lines offer discounted rates to travel agents so that they can experience what a traveller would get. Travel and accommodation suppliers and tour operators embrace the opportunity to raise awareness of their services and provide the best portrait of their business. They should aim to answer any and every question a travel agent may have, so that this information makes its way to potential new customers!
So, if you were a travel agent and could choose to go on a fam trip – what would you like to experience? Bare in mind, this is work and not play!
To find out more about fam trips or travel management in general, get in touch with our team of friendly experts!