Here's how you can juggle competing priorities to meet project deadlines in travel and tourism.

Having more than 19 years of experience in corporate travel market, when it comes to prioritizing tasks (whether operational or commercial, areas in which I have worked for years), it has always guided me to identify tasks that require greater urgency, taking into account the capacity and speed of completion with excellence for each one.

> Identify the most critical tasks for meeting deadlines and focus resources on those first. Utilize tools like Eisenhower Matrix to categorize tasks by urgency and importance. > Keep stakeholders informed about potential roadblocks and adjust expectations proactively. Negotiate deadlines if necessary and delegate tasks effectively to free up your time. > Plan your day effectively, set realistic goals, and minimize distractions to maximize productivity. > Utilize time management techniques like Pomodoro Technique to stay focused.

Whenever I have led teams in the operational and commercial departments of corporate travel agencies I have worked in, first of all, I constantly work on obtaining the best possible team, because being surrounded by capable people, delegating tasks becomes easier, thus making the team more efficient and multidisciplinary. With this in mind and being worked on daily, the team becomes more independent, providing leadership with more time and focus on the strategic part.

This is one way I juggle with multiple tasks by delegating task on the basis of expertise areas of staff and keeping core work to myself. Also it is important to communicate deadlines clearly.

When we deal with flexible planning at a corporate travel agency, for example, we identified that the “adaptability” component is part of the DNA of the operational team (travel consultants). Flights change all the time, hotels constantly inform you at check-ins that the reservation confirmed by the agency (and validated by the reservation department of the same hotel) does not exist and car rental companies constantly deliver cars that fall short of the reserved category. With these and other components of unpredictability, the operation needs people capable of understanding this dynamic, having as a guide their mission to "serve" the customer (traveler) so that they have the best experience.

Time management is crucial on any tourism front. Taking as an example my work in recent years as sales manager of 2 TOP 10 corporate travel agencies in Brazil, we always seek to combine technology (CRM, mainly) and quick internal meetings, but with a certain frequency on a weekly basis. This way we can monitor actions according to its expertise, specification and deadline (CRM), in the same way we open short moments for the team for discussion and exchange of experiences, going "beyond" the obvious and programmed by the CRM.

Whether in an operational or commercial team of a corporate travel agency, for example, from the moment performance indicators are defined (service level agreement for response time of travel consultants, or even how many contracts were closed monthly by the travel team, sales), simply stipulate your form of capture (CRM, Business Intelligence, Omnichannel Platform, etc.) and define deadlines and monitoring formats (weekly meeting, for example).