DALLAS — ASTA is stiffening the requirements for travel advisors to be certified as ASTA Verified Travel Advisors (VTAs).
ASTA is instituting requirements for experience and annual sales as well as continuing education to attain and retain the title, the Society announced at its Travel Advisor Conference at the Hilton Anatole.
VTA certification launched in 2017 as an advanced program for advisors; nine courses were required. It was designed for advisors with several years of experience selling travel.
The program has been a success, with about 1,500 advisors certified as VTAs right now, according to ASTA president and CEO Zane Kerby. Since the program’s introduction, “we’ve never fielded a single complaint against an ASTA Verified Travel Advisor,” Kerby said.
Currently, the heart of the program is four courses for which ASTA is an authority, Kerby said: Legal Insights, Ethical Excellence, Legal Compass and Regulatory Guidebook.
ASTA is introducing criteria for advisors to be eligible for VTA certification. Advisors must prove a minimum of two years uninterrupted experience as an advisor with annual sales of $500,000 for at least one of the last two years, or five years of experience and an annual sales volume of $250,000 for each of those five years.
Sales numbers must be verified by a host or consortium; unaffiliated advisors can work with ASTA to verify sales via other methods.
To maintain VTA status, advisors must complete continuing education and recertify every two years.
ASTA is testing additional ways to get advisors in the program. At the Travel Advisor Conference, for instance, more than 70 advisors signed up to do coursework in advance, attend four in-person courses and take a test Friday morning. If they pass, they will become VTAs.
Kerby said the Society is developing a new consumer-facing tool on its website, ASTA.org, to match consumers looking for advisors with VTA certification. Kerby said ASTA will “promote this tool far and wide.”
The consumer-facing tool will be mobile-friendly and tied to ASTA’s database of VTAs.
“People are looking for travel they can trust, and ASTA’s Verified Travel Advisors are the solution,” Kerby said. “Travel advisors who take this step are not only staying relevant by doing so, they’re making themselves indispensable. Our industry will only ever be as good as the trust we’re able to create with the traveling public. If that’s the kind of professional you want to be, you’re in the right place.”