Pictured at the presentation of certificates to the eight new Portman Travel employees in Fels Point Hotel, on Wednesday night were: Peter Carroll, Helena Porter, Patrick Fealy, Patricia Breen, Denise Tangney, Damien Driscoll, Mary Clifford, Helen O’Connor all from Tralee and front is Steve Allen CEO of Portman Travel. Photo By : Domnick Walsh / Eye Focus LTD
PORTMAN Travel have created eight permanent new jobs at their European Centre of Excellence and have announced that another eight are planned to come on stream before the end of the year.
The Travel Management Company that has been operating in Tralee from Monavalley Business Park since 1999 and employs over 50 staff.
Eight people were taken on through the JobsBridge programme, all of whom did not have any previous experience in this type of work. They received training in the company’s Portman Academy which was created and designed in conjunction with JobsBridge to harness and develop fresh new talent for careers in business travel management.
The first eight graduates have successfully completed their training and were yesterday presented with their Certificate of Completion by Steve Allen, Portman Travel CEO, at a business networking event at Fels Point Hotel.
They now take up permanent positions at the Tralee base in Monavalley.
“The Portman Academy has proved to be a huge success and I am delighted to be here today to congratulate our eight graduates and more importantly welcome our eight new members of staff to the European Centre of Excellence,” said Portman Travel CEO Steve Allen.
“We are delighted to be expanding our operation in Tralee that has over the years always provided a rich talent pool with great customer service and sales skills. Our product innovation and truly unique booking technology, PortmanOne, enables us to attract the best new talent to our business without needing to have any travel experience. We will shortly commence recruitment for our next intake of Portman Academy interns in conjunction with JobsBridge with training scheduled to commence in the summer,” said Mr Allen.
“As a result of JobsBridge, Tralee will get more of our new staff, proportionately than our offices in the UK and the Netherlands so it’s a win-win initiative,” said Mr Allen, who was speaking to TraleeToday.ie at their offices in Monavalley.
“We approached this with the guarantee that anyone who was taken on would get a job on completion of training,” said Operations Director at Portman Travel, John Dick.
“I’ve been coming here for eight years now and one thing which has stood out for me is the quality of our people here in Tralee. That’s why we chose it as our centre of excellence,” he said.
Loraine Corkery, Vice President of Operations at Portman Travel, came up with the idea of involving JobsBridge in the training programme and was also delighted with how things have turned out.
“We had run training programmes of our own in the past and a number of our current employees have come through a similar process. The difference here is the involvement of JobsBridge. It’s been an added bonus as far as we’re concerned. The fact that we were able to select the right kind of people was crucial to us and JobsBridge themselves are very happy with how it’s worked out.
It might be a bit strong to say we’re a poster child for JobsBridge, but we’re certainly heading that way. This is very much in the spirit of what JobsBridge was set up to achieve – to train people for careers in a particular industry,” she said.
For more information about the Portman Academy and the Portman Travel European Centre of Excellence, please contact Niall Trant the Academy Manager on 087 – 4196887 or email ntrant@portmantravel.com
