I am lucky. I live in Annapolis, home of the United States Naval Academy and have been fortunate enough to attend many Army-Navy football games. Saturday was the 115th game and Navy won the battle again for the 13th consecutive year. But while these kids (I can call them that now that I am old) battle it out on the gridiron, there is one underlying message that is always palpable.
One Team.
There are no holds barred leading up to the game, or playing the game. May the best man win and may he do whatever it takes to secure the win. But a strange thing happens at the end of the game. The crowd does not rise up and flock to the parking lot for another beer or to head home. The teams do not sprint (or sulk) into the locker rooms.
The crowd rises to their feet, removes their hats and listens (or sings along) to the alma maters of each school. Army sang first in their corner of the stadium, and Navy sun last in theirs. Both teams are backed by the team that was their enemy just a few minutes before. They came together as one; for when they graduate, everyone will be serving in our military—on one team.
As I sat at my desk on Sunday contemplating this column, I began to think that much of the travel industry is very similar. One team. Of course we all have our own individual goals. Of course we do not want to give up any of our business to any competitor. Of course we want to be the best professionals, and of course we all want to come out on top.
But as I look across the various TRO platforms, I see that we are very much like “America’s Game” in that in the end, we are all on one team, striving to get ahead. And very much like the service academies, we will take the time to help each other succeed. The tools provided to agents are free on TRO. We have travel professionals who write a weekly Agent Perspective column to share their expertise. We have agents willing to open the workings of their business successes and failures to you in the Travel Agent Diary series. And most importantly, we have an incredibly robust TRO community forum which is entirely agents helping agents. One team.
Hopefully you are taking advantage of all that TRO has to offer. And if you are a little interested in the Army Navy Game and the one team….well here are some shots from this past weekend.
One thought on “Travel professionals — one team”
John-Navy is a class act. When they played Ohio State in Columbus they joined the Buckeyes after the game and sang our Alma Mater. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqkAirIXFUw
As agents, we can learn a lot from this display of sportsmanship and camaraderie. When was the last time we showed unity as a profession? When was the last time you thanked a client for booking with a travel agency even though it wasn’t yours? We all need to work together to promote our industry, our profession and show the public that we are indeed professionals.