If you want to future-proof an industry, you start at the beginning.
That was the clear message from the second national Travel Skills Taskforce (TST) forum delivered by the Australian Travel Careers Council (ATCC) as it advances its comprehensive review of the National Certificate III in Travel, the foundational qualification for Australia’s next generation of travel advisors.
After months of groundwork in late 2025, including five intensive preparatory meetings engaging more than 60 representatives from the retail, corporate, and training sectors, the 2026 consultation phase is now well underway. The objective is refreshingly straightforward: ensure the Certificate III in Travel reflects how the industry actually works today, not how it worked when fax machines were considered cutting-edge.
Held on 18 February in a hybrid format, the latest forum gathered almost 30 Travel Skills Taskforce participants from four states. On the agenda were the competency units covering selling tourism products or services, preparing customer quotations, booking tourism products and processing documentation, in other words, the bread and butter of front-line travel advisory work.
Chaired by ATCC Chief Executive Officer Rick Myatt and facilitated by Kellie Stanbury, National Operations Manager at Corporate Travel Management (CTM), the session was anything but theoretical. It was robust, candid and distinctly forward-focused.
Automation Meets Apprenticeship
Participants were unequivocal: automation is reshaping travel operations at a pace. Quoting systems, booking engines and documentation workflows are increasingly streamlined through technology. But, and this is critical, the forum supported retaining selected manual procedures where they underpin conceptual understanding.
Australian Travel Careers Council CEO Rick Myatt
In other words, before an advisor can trust a system to calculate a fare, they should understand why the fare exists in the first place.
This measured approach reflects a broader industry consensus. Technology may accelerate processes, but foundational knowledge builds professional judgement. For entry-level advisors, that balance is essential.
The forum also identified significant overlap between competency units SITTTVL005 and SITTTVL006. As a result, participants proposed exploring the consolidation of Preparing Customer Quotations, Booking Tourism Products and Processing Documentation. The practical benefit? Creating space within the qualification for an additional elective unit, potentially focused on emerging technology capabilities.
That’s not tinkering around the edges. That’s structural reform.
Selling Still Starts with People
Beyond systems and syllabuses, the conversation returned to fundamentals. Entry-level advisors must understand supplier contractual arrangements at an appropriate depth. They need to build rapport before chasing buying signals. They must grasp the operational and customer consequences of inaccurate quotations or flawed bookings.
Technology may assist, but trust still wins the sale.
The emphasis on relationship-building, something seasoned agents have known for decades, reinforces that while tools evolve, principles endure. The industry’s veterans would likely nod in agreement: a booking confirmation may be automated, but confidence is still earned the old-fashioned way.
There was also strong support for exposing students to contemporary back-office systems, even when training environments cannot fully replicate them. The rationale is simple. Awareness breeds competence. Graduates entering the workforce should recognise the tools they will use, not meet them for the first time on day one.
A National Conversation with Real Stakes
Three further Travel Skills Taskforce forums are scheduled for 11 March, 1 April and 22 April, covering the remaining Certificate III in Travel competency units. The scope is national. The implications are long-term.
This qualification underpins entry into one of Australia’s most resilient and adaptive industries. According to Tourism Australia, tourism remains a cornerstone of the national economy, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. Ensuring that new entrants are equipped with current, practical and commercially relevant skills is not a bureaucratic exercise; it’s an economic imperative.
Importantly, ATCC has made clear that the consultation remains open. Retail and corporate travel businesses not already involved are encouraged to participate. Industry input is not symbolic here; it is shaping the curriculum.
Those wishing to contribute can contact Rick Myatt at [email protected] or Kellie Stanbury at [email protected].
Back to Basics Done Properly
There is something reassuring about the tone of these discussions. No grandstanding. No glossy buzzwords. Just practical professionals asking what a competent, entry-level travel advisor should truly know in 2026 and beyond.
In an era where qualifications can drift out of step with industry reality, the ATCC’s methodical review signals a return to disciplined workforce development. Align the training with the trade. Teach the fundamentals. Integrate the technology. Build from there.
It may not grab headlines in the way new aircraft orders do, but the reform of Certificate III in Travel could prove far more consequential. After all, planes don’t sell themselves.
People do.
And Australia’s future travel advisors deserve a qualification built for the world they are stepping into, not the one we left behind.
by Sandra Jones – (c) 2026.
Read Time: 4 minutes.
About the Writer.
Sandra has spent a working lifetime quietly rescuing journeys, one itinerary, one anxious caller, one impossible connection at a time. Years in Australia’s finest travel agencies taught her the art of calm, how to find a flight in a fog of cancellations, how to soothe a traveller when luggage wanders, how to turn nine frantic days in Europe into something resembling sense. Qualified, seasoned, endlessly patient, she learned that good travel advice is part logistics, part listening.
But the storyteller in her was always waiting its turn. Writing offered a new map, a way to turn experience into reflection, detail into delight. At Global Travel Media, Sandra now writes the truths only insiders know: the mishaps, the laughter, the grace found between gates and goodbyes. She reminds us that travel, for all its fuss, is still one of life’s better ideas.
