How to Become a Travel Coach
What is a Travel Coach
Unlike a travel agent, a travel coach doesn’t focus on the booking phase of a trip, instead, they help people set intentions for their trips and use travel as a tool for transformation, wellness, or reaching their personal or professional goals. Travel coaches focus in a wide variety of niches which are based on of their specific travel knowledge, interests, and expertise. Based on anecdotal and industry research, travel can be beneficial for us as a human beings in a variety of ways including personal development, reaching our goals, self-discovery, human connection, healing, and much more. Therefore, travel coaches helps clients obtain their desired outcomes or transformations that are causing them to want to go on a trip in the first place. There are various definitions of a “travel coach” out there since the career is on the rise but The Travel Coach Network is the leading pioneer in this industry and has defined the term to set it apart from other travel professions.
What does a Travel Coach do?
A travel coach uses their coaching knowledge and skills to better understand the client (the traveler) on a deeper and more personal level and to help them bring awareness to why they want to go on a trip in the first place. When a client is aware of what their motivations for the trip are, they can make better travel and booking decisions for where to go, whom to travel with, and what type of activities or experiences to have. Depending on what the travel coach’s niche is, the coach helps the client achieve specific personal goals through their trip. For example, some travel coaches focus on empowering and helping women during a life transition find their purpose, spark inspiration, and get clarity for the next steps in their life through going on a solo or a group trip. Although a travel coach is not a travel agent, there are many travel agents who combine travel coaching into their services to enhance their services.
Steps to becoming a Travel Coach
1) Find your Niche
The old school way of “finding your niche” has been thrown out of the window. Times have changed, the industry has changed, and why people travel has a lot more purpose to it. Therefore, as a travel professional, you need to upgrade how you attract, work with, and market to your clients. There are endless amount of niches that you can choose from but it all depends on what you as the passionate traveler and business owner wants to help people with. Do you want to focus in solo travel? If so, who is it that you want to empower to take a solo trip? Has travel helped get you through a tough time in your life and now you want to help others use travel as a way to find themselves after trauma? Or maybe you believe in the benefits that multi-generational travel can bring to families. To find your niche, ask yourself, what do you believe in so deeply about travel that you want others to know and who exactly needs to hear it?
2) Find your Ideal Client
Just because everyone loves to travel, doesn’t mean that you can or should serve everyone as a travel coach. In business, you need to be crystal clear on who exactly you are helping and why. If you are unsure of who you want to serve, consider what the transformation that you want to provide is or what it is that you believe in about travel and then think, who needs to believe or experience that? Be specific. A great exercise to knowing your ideal client, I challenge you to list 50 pain points about them. Include things like: what keeps them up at night? What do they think about most? What do they want their life to look like? How do they want to feel every day? What do they struggle with?
3) Get Certified
It’s one thing to know about travel and to have some sort of concept about coaching but it’s important that you know how to integrate coaching into your travel knowledge and expertise. As a business owner, you need to be clear and strategic about who you serve, what your messaging is, and how to attract and work with your clients. Therefore, The Travel Coach Certification Program is the program that helps to accomplished exactly that. Owned by The Travel Coach Network, the Travel Coach Certification Program is home to the world’s first and only International Coach Federation accredited program that helps passionate travelers start and grow their ideal travel coaching business through trainings, support, community, content, resources, and much more.
4) Build a Network
You don’t need to do business alone, even if you are a solo entrepreneur. The Travel Coach Network prides on the fact that we are a global community of travel coaches who all focus in various niches and provide support, resources, and connection to one another. Building a professional network is crucial for professional growth.
5) Attract Clients, Don’t Chase Them
The outdated marketing strategies in tourism are to post “book now!”, “visit today!”, or “go here!” types of content to promote and focus on a destination. What clients are looking for isn’t the destination per se. What they are really looking for is what a destination will do for them. How will visiting a destination and doing certain activities make them feel? How will it benefit their wellbeing? Relationship? Mindset? Career path? And more. Therefore, in travel coaching, we at The Travel Coach Network teach you to tap into the pain points of your ideal clients and use them in your marketing to attract your ideal clients. Speak to their personal needs, wants, goals, and desires. Having a core message is crucial for your travel coaching business as well. What do you represent as a travel coach? What do you want your ideal clients to believe in? Who do you serve and why? What outcomes or transformations do you provide?
Overall, becoming a travel coach doesn’t need to be complicated with all of the noise on the internet in this growing field. The Travel Coach Certification Program is the all-in-one robust program that certifies travel coaches around the globe. Learn more about becoming a Certified Travel Coach here or download your Beginner’s Guide to Travel Coaching here.
