Travel Agent Training Program Wins Nationwide Learning & Development Award

The franchisor’s Training & Events Team won “Best Customer Training” at the 2020 SAP Litmos Lenny Awards, which celebrates exceptional businesses using training to create positive experiences for customers every day.

Every year the Lenny Awards seek submissions that showcase innovative and inspiring educational programs that have measurably benefited customer-facing workforces, improved sales, service and/or channel performance, and have a proven return on investment. This year, there were hundreds of entries from many different types of organizations all over the world wishing to showcase their learning and development or educational programs.

“This award means so much to us because the recognition comes from the Learning and Development field where we competed with a large number of global brands,” said Charity Santiago, director of training of Dream Vacations. “Without a doubt, our entry was made stronger by the large increase of engagement and strong embrace of virtual learning by our Dream Vacations, CruiseOne and Cruises Inc. network.”

This year, due to the impacts of COVID-19, Dream Vacations could not conduct its scheduled weeklong new franchise training classes in-person, but were able to quickly pivot and host them virtually each month, without missing a single class. The virtual onboarding for new franchise owners now consists of a blended learning experience consisting of live-virtual and on-demand training with the same content and training hours. In addition, in-person events were canceled and had to be held virtually this year, which actually proved to be beneficial as many more work-from-home travel agents attended.

In fact, there was a 250 percent increase in engagement at virtual events this year, with 63 percent being first-time attendees.

“People who are traveling now value travel agents even more and in these uncertain times, it is more important than ever before that our travel agents have the training and education to best serve their clients,” said Drew Daly, general manager & senior vice president of Dream Vacations. “We believe we have the best and most successful agents in the industry because they are the most educated, and once people start traveling again, our agents will be well-positioned to take advantage of the pent-up demand and come back stronger than ever.”