5 Years and Counting: Why BDM Beth Loves Her Job

I recently celebrated my five-year anniversary with VAX VacationAccess, somewhat synchronizing with the birth of The Compass and I was advised, sorry all of you that must endure my writings, that you should hear from me periodically about my adventures, experiences and learnings throughout the year. For those of you that don’t know me, take a seat and prepare for the ride.

I came to Trisept Solutions from Midwest Airlines as a corporate trainer for their call center. I journeyed through the transition to Frontier Airlines and was intrigued to expand my travel industry focus on not just airlines but the whole leisure travel package. Prior to travel, I was using my education degree as a band director for 10 years, following my post-college diversion of working at Walt Disney World for almost a handful of years.

VAX excited me because I “knew everything” about the travel industry from Midwest Airlines, the best care in the air, so this would be easy! Well, after that wakeup call I began learning a whole new world of travel and certainly the value of travel agents for the traveling community. It didn’t take long to see that I had embarked upon the best job in the world, because everywhere I travel, agents tell me they LOVE VAX.

Over my time here I’ve loved sharing with you our enhancements for engagement like the sales email and adding your personalized agency logo to your emails. Additionally, it’s been so rewarding being able to share with you our booking tool enhancements such as final payment options, the Smart Res tool, the wedding match tool and your ability to book on-the-go with our responsively designed booking engine and so much more.

I have definitely been blessed with some incredible new relationships on this VAX journey thus far. I’ve been lucky enough to develop relationships with several host agencies, their leaders and agents through their yearly national conferences. It goes without say that along the way I’ve had some great laughs with several suppliers that I run into regularly as well. I consider so many of these relationships as my travel family.

I often spend more time with some of you then I do my actual family. You do begin to wonder when, at a recent conference traveling with my friend Lisa Doss of The Mark Travel Corporation, we had to share a room for a couple of nights. This is not a common occurrence but certainly not a deal breaker when it means I have the opportunity to engage with a great group of agents. Lisa and I went to dinner with some agents the first night, leaving our room with two queen beds in their original separated spots. When we returned we found that housekeeping had graciously moved the room to accommodate our misperceived lifestyle.

After crying a few tears of laughter, we finally had housekeeping re-arrange the room and settled in for some sleep.

Many events often have experiences you just can’t even make up! Would you ever expect a trade show to take place when the light went out? When that happens we just roll with the flow and make the best of it!

Ultimately though, it is the relationships I have built with so many agents around the country that really motivate me to continue improving my  skills and unique abilities to be the ambassador between you, the travel agents, and our company, that strives to provide you with exactly what you need to be successful in your businesses. Being able to talk to an agent that shares feedback of what VAX could do to improve your efficiency is what I’m all about. And when I can share tips on how that may already exist and see the joy of such positive change in your life, that makes me so very satisfied in my career choice. I can honestly say that I’ve had agents come up to hug me and tell me how I’ve changed their business after demonstrating a simple tool in a training (like the sales email), causing countless agents sharing that same sentiment.

Look for me so we can have some VAX adventures together! Let me show you how our award-winning technology, the travel marketplace, needs to be your daily destination for your business!

About the Author

Beth Kitzman is the business development manager for Trisept Solutions' Agency Channel for VAX VacationAccess. Beth focuses on nurturing business relationships and finding exciting, unique ways for VAX to support travel agencies. With over 20 years of experience in the travel industry, beginning with Walt Disney World then working for airlines and now focusing on travel technology, Beth loves using her education degree to find ways to educate and empower travel agents to grow their leisure travel business.