TRUFFLEPIG JOB DESCRIPTION

TRIP PLANNER

What is Trufflepig?

Trufflepig is a Trip Planning company based in Toronto, started in 2004. We’re really good at what we do, which is to plan and operate complex, imaginative, carefully-orchestrated custom trips in many different countries around the world. Our clients are couples, families, groups of friends, curious about the world and looking for top notch travel experiences. We are known for the depth of our planning expertise, our attention to detail, and our highly personal customer-service.

Beyond our HQ in Toronto, we have a second office in Burgundy (France) and a number of home offices spread around the globe. Trufflepig currently employs 30 full-time staff who work in a distributed fashion across those different locations. We operate in English.

The core of our team is made up of our Trip Planners, who are destination specialists, and whom we (and others) consider to be the best in the business. They are a varied and unique bunch of characters with personality to spare, all with years of different experience in their destinations, and all experts at planning travel. But they also excel at dealing with our clients who are smart, demanding, curious, and well-informed, and who expect the best at every turn.

Those planners are assisted by a team of dedicated Planning Coordinators who help them run the trips with precision. The Coordinators in turn are supported by a small team of Operations Assistants. A small Management Team oversees Finance, HR, Operations and Strategy.

What does the job entail?

The planning role requires two contrasting mind-sets: working with our detailed Trip Planning process, being precise and exact, and having hawk-like attention to detail; but also (taking into account the custom nature of our work - no two trips or clients are ever the same) having a real talent for understanding people, solving problems, finding new solutions for new situations, and making smart, quick, improvised decisions.

So we look for applicants with a variety of different capabilities. The people-skills to handle our demanding clients: you need to know how to listen, how to communicate clearly, how to develop relationships and to establish credibility and trust. The writing skills to produce our detailed itineraries and trip documents: you need an excellent level of written as well as spoken English to do this job well, and you need a precise as well as an engaging writing style. The cultural curiosity and travel background which will make you persuasive and credible in this role, and which will keep the role interesting as you evolve into it. And finally the fit with our company values and ethos, and willingness to roll with our countless pig metaphors and puns.

If wrangling the ingredients can sometimes be mundane, the end result is anything but. It is important to us that the people who travel with Trufflepig have the time of their lives. To do this job well, you need to care about the trips and about the people involved. At Trufflepig our aim is to establish not just transactional but long-standing relationships with both our clients and our suppliers, and that is a key part of how we try to show respect for the places in which we work.

What does a Coordinator do?

In short, they plan and operate trips, and that means talking to each client, listening intensely, developing trip ideas with them, working those ideas up into fully detailed trip itineraries, and then operating the resulting trips flawlessly. All along, the relationship with the client is what makes or breaks the success of the trip, and so your ability to listen and understand is your first tool. Our clients demand real answers to difficult questions, extremely high quality work, and smart service.

To plan trips, our Planners master Trufflepig’s internal processes and systems, and are supported by our operations team and by our management, so that they benefit from Trufflepig’s broader experience. We all work closely together and this is not a position for a lone wolf.

On any given day, you might be doing the following:

• Engaging with clients in person, by email and on the phone, to discuss their travel requests, to present ideas, go over detailed itineraries, and to prepare them for their trip.
• Preparing carefully written trip ideas, itineraries or final documents.
• Working with our operations team and using our Trip Planning tools to set-up, book and fine-tune the arrangements on individual trips.
• Working with your planning colleagues on trips which cover multiple destinations.
• Doing on-the-road research: visiting hotels, meeting people, digging into old or new regions and places, gathering contacts and knowledge to enable you to plan trips.
• Engaging with existing suppliers and contacts to develop new ideas for trips, visits or activities.
• Writing for our online magazine.
• Updating our written materials or photo library.
• Reviewing your completed trips and performance with your manager and looking for ways to improve.
• Managing a heavy work-load and learning how to prioritise your precious time.

The Ideal Candidate:

• Writes well, listens well, talks clearly.
• Has travel, work or living experience in a specific region or country, and has therefore good written and spoken command of a foreign language or two.
• Has oodles of cultural curiosity and a desire to work in travel, to put together trips, and to share their enthusiasm for specific destinations.
• Can engage successfully with strong-minded clients to inspire, influence and lead them in their travel decisions.
• Has a driving license.
• Is comfortable working with computers.
• Is supremely organised.
• Is keen to be a high-performing member of a very well-oiled team and of a small company at the top of its game.