How To Become A Travel Coordinator: What It Is and Career Path

What is a travel coordinator and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Diane Petras

A travel coordinator is an administrative expert who is engaged by an organization to take care of all of the business travel arrangements for the company's employees. This includes scheduling flights, booking accommodations, and other trip-related tasks. Your primary responsibility is finding and arranging apt modes of travel, confirming reservations, and distributing tickets along with confirmations to a traveler. You are also expected to resolve travel-related technical conflicts, facilitate communication between organizations and the chosen travel agency, and ensure that the travel agency understands the requirements. By implication, you must work together with the travel agency to verify travel details and arrange reservations.

A high school diploma is required for the position of a travel coordinator and at least three years of experience in a related field. You should have an excellent level of organization and the ability to pay close attention to detail. You will earn an average of $56,789 per annum.

What general advice would you give to a travel coordinator?

Diane Petras

CTIE, president, The Travel Institute

Agents should expect business to return when the pandemic passes. In fact, there is already significant, pent-up demand with consumers who want to travel. Short-term, this demand has translated into 1) greater interest in domestic travel as a more comfortable, familiar option for now, and 2) bookings for travel itineraries a year or more out. Longer-term and post-pandemic, the travel industry is expected to fully recover for both national and international travel bookings. Both short- and long-term, agents need to understand and communicate with travelers on new health-related travel protocols and, possibly, emerging health-related ratings for suppliers and destinations. In the meantime, given the fluidity of changes in travel restrictions and destinations, agents can also expect great professional camaraderie as agents are sharing dynamically-changing travel and destination details so that the industry can best serve all travelers.

ScoreTravel CoordinatorUS Average

Salary

3.4

Avg. Salary $43,628

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.0

Growth rate 20%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

2.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.11%

Asian 7.92%

Black or African American 7.16%

Hispanic or Latino 13.11%

Unknown 4.44%

White 67.26%

Gender

female 78.57%

male 21.43%

Age - 52

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 52

Stress level

7.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.6

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.4

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a travel coordinator

Explore travel coordinator education requirements

Most common travel coordinator degrees

Bachelor's

56.9 %

Associate

19.9 %

High School Diploma

8.2 %

Start to develop specific travel coordinator skills

Skills	Percentages
Customer Service	19.34%
Reservations	17.70%
Booking	12.44%
Credit Card	6.54%
Ground Transportation	4.07%

Complete relevant travel coordinator training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New travel coordinators learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a travel coordinator based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real travel coordinator resumes.

Research travel coordinator duties and responsibilities

Manage corporate travel arrangements for business accounts, including passport and visa documents.
Assist with rail, hotel and rental car reservation utilizing the Sabre GDS system.
Create and store written documentation of all communications and transactions in the Amadeus system.
Ensure above optimum customer service through effective use of the worldwide web & multi GDS system.

Prepare your travel coordinator resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your travel coordinator resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a travel coordinator resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable travel coordinator resume templates

Build a professional travel coordinator resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your travel coordinator resume.