A Survey study for sales people's success degree in personal selling process in travel agencies operating araund Eskişehir

ABSTRACT Human resource has become one of the most focused subjects within the contemprary management concept because of its importance in improving profitability, pruductivity and market shares of organisations. This development is recognized in the travel industry, too. Human resource is again primary focus in personal selling process in which intensive human relations are experienced. This study which was carried considering the importance of the subject for the related industry and travel agencies, the developments in travel agencies and efforts used to increase the volume of sales have been given. After that, the findings of the studies about the process of personal selling have been discussed. As a result of this evaluation, it was found out that there was not any detailed study about the personal selling process in travel sector. The findings of this empirical study aiming to initiate studies on this subject are summarized in the following paragraphs. It was found that women have been mostly employed as a sales person; the employees of travel agencies have upper grade edecuation level; the percentage of experienced sales person is lower than that of inexperienced sales person; in-service training has not been considered important; the lower payment policy is dominant in the travel sector. In addition to these, the findings related to the application of the personal selling procees indicated that the requirements of the first step, the prospecting step, have not been considered seriously. In general, sales persons are succesfiill in the preapproach and the following after sale steps and are not competent in the communication and the closing sale steps.