AmericanTours Reviews

Current Employee – been working at AmericanTours full-time for more than a year

Pros – promotes from within, innovative environment

Cons – long hours, but worth it

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at AmericanTours full-time

Pros – I had to rack my brain for something to put here...
A lot of holiday and birthday potlucks.

Cons – First, the company overall is so stuck in the '70s, I honestly don't know how they're still in business.

Needs a SERIOUS revamp of internal and external computer/booking systems, which I won't hold IT accountable for because the team definitely has the knowledge to make advancements; they just don't have the go ahead from senior management.

Turnover is higher than anything I've ever seen, probably because they treat their ground level employees like slaves. While I was there, 15 people left within 2 months. Isn't that saying something?

The pay is a joke for what they expect out of you. Say goodbye to your life so you can work crap hours for a laughable paycheck. (Oh, and by the way, they also want $30 from each of those laughable paychecks for parking. Or you can fight to find street parking everyday and risk getting a ticket. Up to you.)

A lot of petty, high school drama and passive aggressive anger floating around. Definitely an "in crowd" mentality and playing favorites going on.

Very little communication between departments. No one wants to accept responsibillity for their own tasks, which leads to a constant blame game.

Oh, travel benefits you ask? Yeah of course there are some available, but good luck finding time off to use them.

A lot of hollow promises for advancement, raises, perks, etc without an follow through.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat your entry level employees better, especially accounting and operations. If accounting isn't succeeding (which it certainly wasn't, when I was there), it makes everyones job more difficult. And the people in operations are the only ones interacting with hotels, agencies AND passengers on a daily basis. Keep them happy, as they are the face of the entire company.
There's plenty of revenue coming in, yet none of it trickles down to higher pay or any sort of bonus for these employees. It all stays with the higher ups who are out of touch with what is really going on.
Maybe if you paid people more and treated them with basic respect you wouldn't have such a high turnover rate in which people refer to leaving your company as "jumping off a sinking ship."

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AmericanTours

Pros – There is truly a lot of great talent at the organization. There are SOME great manager sand executives. The travel benefits are pretty good and the industry is pretty interesting and sexy if you get into it.

During the time that i was there the technology stack had been very simplified and there was a clear general direction on where IT needed to go in order to further reduce maintenance costs. The team we had working on it was fantastic, however, all of them left (6 of them as a direct result of ownership's treatment of them).

The greatest pro that this company has is its pure potential. ATI could revolutionize the travel industry in so many ways, but keep tripping over themselves in the process. Its somewhat amazing they are even surviving.

Cons – Ownership has placed absolutely no value in learning even at a high level how IT works and how it can best serve the organization. As a result you have flip floppy decision making about projects, reckless and ruthless about their staffing, an inability to empower their IT staff to actually complete a project and a flip floppy dedication to IT that results in the rug being pulled out underneath your efforts.

In addition to the ownership issue the other VP's in the organization have worked with the organization so long that they understand exactly what ownership wants and how to circumvent it. They also are VERY territorial and there is a lot of passive aggressive infighting.

Advice to Senior Management – 1. Focus on getting the 'RIGHT' people into place.
2. Rigorous not ruthless when it comes to staff
3. Make a plan and stick to it! Stop worrying about the daily change in the markets, let your executive leadership handle that.
4. Use budgeting as an opportunity to figure out what will be FULLY FUNDED and what wont be worked on at all.
5. Noel and Michael should step down and allow a CEO with vision, leadership skills and discipline to move the organization forward into a new phase of its existence.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AmericanTours

Pros – They have great cutting end technologies and some very good architects and lead developers. They also have some travel benefits.

Cons – Lack of reviews.
No Job stability or feedback.
Information hording.
No Career path or training.
Random layoffs
Pay and Benefit cuts with lack of appreciation
no Positive reinforcement, only negative i.e.working unpaid overtime then receiving a pay cut regardless.
Lack of a Business process for releases.
Unreasonable Deadlines seem they are not based on any sort of metrics but rather clients requests / demands.
Poor benefits and lack of incentives.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to the team working for you. Don't hold meetings promising one thing then do the opposite. Offer training or some form of advancement within the company. Don't bother trying to motivate people with false hopes and unachievable promises. When people ask questions and specifics of these promises and there is no direct answer, they can see right through it. Require annual reviews instead of making people request them. Don't treat people as if they are disposable, people are what make up the company. Provide feedback to employees let the employees know where they need improvement. Create Reasonable deadlines that include some time for unplanned events or training new employees, you will reach them much more often. Don't horde information. If you want things to get done quickly, it helps when people know background information involving what they are working on. What is the reasoning behind making changes that will impact everyone?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AmericanTours

Pros – The employees are generally upbeat, helpful and friendly. Fun-oriented team building activities occur regularly. If you want to learn the travel industry, or computer technology, or are a workaholic, you will get ample opportunity for fulfillment here. There are also some travel industry related benefits.

Cons – Performance reviews and professional development take a back seat to output. There is a stated shared-cost supervisor approved education reimbursement program, but your boss may balk at even reimbursing for needed books . The workload is also distinctly seasonal, so you will be much more comfortable if your personal schedule can be adapted to that. Employees come and go much more frequently than anywhere I have worked before.

Advice to Senior Management – You need to expand beyond your knowledge of the travel industry and employ modern organizational management to create career opportunities and a more committed team.