Travel experts: Africa – job vacancy for August 2016

Based in our head office in south-west London, near Richmond, Expert Africa is a market-leading, award-winning specialist tour operator, with a growing business and an unparalleled track record for African expertise.

Our aim is to advise travellers in great detail to help them plan trips that are right for them, and then to organise these faultlessly. We focus strongly on customer service; the satisfaction of our customers is paramount.

Our small team consists of 15 well-organised individuals: team-players who are naturally honest with a high degree of integrity. Everyone works hard and together – it’s a very co-operative environment. We’re a member of the independent Sunvil group, and work within a larger, lively office.

We have vacancies for two travel jobs; for both we’re looking for candidates who have the right approach and ethos – who are looking for an enjoyable and rewarding long-term career. We have great flexibility in these precise roles, so can tailor the jobs to the right applicant.

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Africa Travel Expert

If you are a bright, successful Africa travel specialist, with solid experience working in the African travel field, and you’d like to up your game to a job in an environment with more variety, focused on real quality, then we may have the perfect post for you.

You will already have first-hand experience of some of the areas of Africa that we feature. Detailed, up-to-date knowledge of these countries, their attractions, and especially their national parks and safari camps/hotels is valuable to us – as is competency on Amadeus.

To be successful, you will need to be enthusiastic and intelligent, conscientious and co-operative; you will always take your duties seriously and make decisions carefully. Excellent communication skills are important, as are solid basic computer skills.

A high level of literacy is vital: you will be adept at expressing your ideas in writing, and there’s great scope for a keen writer to develop that skill and contribute to articles and guidebooks. Strong numeracy is also required. Most successful applicants will hold good degrees, but there will be literacy and numeracy tests as part of the application procedure.

An aptitude for IT, SEO and web-related issues would be a great asset, whilst an interest in photography (still and video) would be a bonus. Of course, it should be obvious that you’ll also need to demonstrate a genuine passion for Africa, probably including an interest in its wildlife, ecology and cultures.

Our team members get involved in all aspects of our business. We don’t have formal ‘product managers’, a ‘sales team’, or ‘admin assistants’. Instead, every member of our team takes on aspects of these roles. Everyone organises trips for travellers from start to finish; everyone gets involved with PR and marketing; everyone helps develop our programme; and everyone works creatively on our brochure and our website. If you are keen, and have the ability and aptitude, then we will give you the opportunity to grow and specialise.

Our flexible approach has been very successful – and provided new team members have the right approach and ethos, they can grow swiftly into roles, including senior roles, which suit their abilities and experience. Our staff turnover is exceedingly low, we tend to hire and then keep team members!

We’re very different from most of our competitors. We will never ask you to ‘hard sell’ anything, to ‘switch-sell’ places or to ‘up-sell’ things to our travellers – which are all techniques uses by our competitors. We don’t want a ‘travel consultant who sells Africa’. Instead we want a real Africa expert, who can advise our travellers accurately, from first-hand experience, and with empathy and understanding. We find that when we focus on offering our travellers the very best advice, and great-value trips, then they usually choose to travel with us.

We try hard to promote responsible tourism and will need you to do so also.

Starting salary: Dependent upon ability & experience.

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Graduate job: Trainee Africa Expert

If you are bright, keen graduate with a demonstrable passion for Africa and an eye for detail; if you’re enthusiastic and intelligent, conscientious and co-operative; if you always take your duties seriously and make decisions carefully; if you are a clear communicator, and good with words and numbers; if you like the look of the role above, but haven’t got the travel industry experience yet – then we’d be interested to take you on as a trainee.

Like everyone here, you’ll have great considerable scope and the chance to develop a real knowledge and expertise on Africa.

Starting salary: £19,000 p.a.

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Both of the positions above offer real opportunities for progression within Expert Africa, limited only by your own abilities, experience and motivation.

We pay at the top of the scale for our sector of the industry. All packages includes 20 days holiday per year. After you’ve been with us for two years, they also include group private health insurance, annual travel insurance and a contribution-matching pension scheme.

After about your first 6-12 months with us, you can look forward to typically having four weeks of research travel in Africa every year. This is usually made up of two 2-week trips, which will broaden your knowledge and help you to become a real Africa expert. Expert Africa funds this travel completely – usually on individual trips rather than the industry’s standard group sorties; it keeps our team amongst the most knowledgeable in the industry.

Although our head office is in the UK, we are gradually expanding overseas and now have small satellite offices in South Africa and New Zealand . We expect that in the coming years there will be opportunities for the right team members to move between these, to broaden their experience of the different markets.

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Applications procedure

If you think that either position is right for you, then please apply in writing, by post to:

Attn: Eleanor Walkingshaw
Expert Africa
10 & 11 Upper Sq.
Old Isleworth
Middlesex
TW7 7BJ.

Send a full CV stapled to a concise, handwritten letter explaining which position interests you, why you would like to join Expert Africa, and the skills and experience which you feel would specifically make you an asset to the team.

Please include an email address and phone number, and state when you would be available to start work – or what your notice period is. Applications for both positions should be submitted as soon as possible.

Closing date: Wednesday 14th September 2016.

Short-listed candidates will be contacted by Monday 19th September 2016.

Starting date: ASAP / to be discussed.

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Bona fide recruitment consultants are welcome to submit CVs for strong candidates. We pay a maximum of 10%. We do not sign lengthy or restrictive contracts with recruitment consultants.

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Internships for students

We usually have the capacity to accept one intern in the Expert Africa team at any one time – and we focus on students who are undertaking this as part of a university course, typically a sandwich course in travel and tourism or marketing.

These temporary posts usually last about 4-8 months, and focus on projects, often under the direction of the MD. We offer a basic travel / subsistence, but otherwise these posts are unsalaried: they are strictly for volunteers.

Internships are designed to help university students to understand more about a busy travel business, and specifically marketing and the travel industry; they are not designed as a precursor to employment with us.