Long time poster giving a heads up: now a travel agent.

[ben says]

[deleted]

[ben says]

Very cool Ben!  And congratulations going out on your own!

Tell us stories about the business!  Im very curious to know how a travel agent works in the new milieu!!!

Funny you mentioned that, as the business is really deserving of a blog whereby day to day operations are described. To me at least, it's quite fascinating.

Just some random tidbits:

1) TA's make the most money from booking cruises and tours. Those are the real money makers.

2) You gotta sell in the $1-2 mm range, per year, to make it a 6-figure job. (i.e., you're working w/ figures of 10%)

3) You have to be licensed by the state as a "Seller of Travel"

4) A TA's competition isn't necessarily Expedia/Kayak/other OTAs (online travel agents) - our main competitor is people who think they can do it themselves (which is often quite true...other times, not so much)

5) The hardest part of the job is convincing people of the value-added benefit of having an advisor on your side.

6) Once you get an advisor, statistics show: you never really go back to booking things for yourself (retention rate is around 98%).

7) Travel agents are just that - agents - and if the client needs anything, the agent is at their beck and call. It's literally a 24/7 job.

Travel agents do get to travel either for free or at highly discounted rates (75-95% off what a customer pays).

9) It's a much more intense/time consuming job than one would think.

and, most importantly:

10) There is not a single damn trick on getting cheaper airfare than what you can find online. All those "book on Tuesday night" or "Expedia is better than Kayak" --> all hogwash. Airlines do not give deals to certain people while withholding from others. Period.

As I think of them, I'll obviously let you know more. Those are just the striking things I've learned in month 1.

[ben says]

awesome!  I agree about the ta blog as well.  Feel free to write a continuing series of them here for us to host. 

Anecdotes about travel experience would be really cool.

Not a bad idea. If there's sufficient interest, I'm obviously game. I'll throw a few posts up in the coming weeks and we'll see what happens 

[TheCat]

Interested.

[simms3]

Congrats Ben and good luck!  I might be taking a trip to Asia here soon (personal time off trip) so I might be giving you some business

[thelakelander]

Pretty cool Ben. I'm also interested in learning more.

[marty904]

4) A TA's competition isn't necessarily Expedia/Kayak/other OTAs (online travel agents) - our main competitor is people who think they can do it themselves (which is often quite true...other times, not so much)

5) The hardest part of the job is convincing people of the value-added benefit of having an advisor on your side.

I think this is pretty accurate, even TripAdvisor has started steering their TV campaigns to show how booking by yourself, without (their) advise is bad news compared to if you consult them first before booking travel.

[ben says]

Congrats Ben and good luck!  I might be taking a trip to Asia here soon (personal time off trip) so I might be giving you some business

Thanks Simms. Whenever you're ready, let me know. I have a lot of relationships in Asia, and would be happy to share them.

4) A TA's competition isn't necessarily Expedia/Kayak/other OTAs (online travel agents) - our main competitor is people who think they can do it themselves (which is often quite true...other times, not so much)

5) The hardest part of the job is convincing people of the value-added benefit of having an advisor on your side.

I think this is pretty accurate, even TripAdvisor has started steering their TV campaigns to show how booking by yourself, without (their) advise is bad news compared to if you consult them first before booking travel.

Exactly - TA is trying to humanize the online booking process. Statistics show that there is a retreat back to using agents over clicks.

What I've experienced is the mindset: "I got it cheaper, therefore I got it better." Conversations usually range from "how much did you pay" to "did you use Hotwire or Kayak"...I was the same way for the better part of a decade. It was always about finding a deal. As most know, cheapest isn't best, yet we tell ourselves it is when booking travel.

When booking with an OTA:

1) If there's a problem, you're stuck on hold with a call center in India.
2) You have little, if any, control over room & amenities.
3) And you have no relationship with either the hotel or OTA. An OTA doesn't care about which room you prefer or whether you want two beds or one, or whether you think breakfast is included.
4) When a front desk agent at a hotel sees you booked via an OTA, you're just another consumer.

When booking with an agent:

1) You have a 1 on 1 personal relationship with, well, and agent (and all that an agency relationship comes with...fiduciary duties...loyalty...due care...).
2) If there's a problem with your trip, you know the person you're calling. No wait times. No strangers whereby you have to reexplain your issue ad nauseum.
3) Preferential treatment is the norm, not the exception.
4) When a front desk agent sees you booked with an agent, they want to impress you, and your'e automatically "something." [Again, happy client = happy agent = more sales for the vendor]

Travel is expensive. No doubt. It's also something that, most of us at least, don't get to do everyday. Which is why when we travel, we deserve the biggest bang for our buck (which doesn't always include the cheapest fare/rate).

[ben says]

Stephen, you mentioned travel in the new milieu. The biggest change to the industry in the past 5-10 years: experiential travel.

By and large, travel used to consist of, primarily (over 70%) pre-organized, pre-arranged, hop-on/hop-off tours. Think: tour buses and guides holding a flag over their head. "Drive by tourism" - lots of superficial talking, lots of eating in hotels, lots of "now I've seen it, now let's go"....hell, I'm hardly 30 and I remember these kinds of trips from my youth.



From 2001 on, this all changed. Think: Anthony Bourdain. (Industry lingo: Experiential travel.) The new trend is to be immersed in local culture. Eat street food. No more bus tours. No more tour guides. Speaking with locals. Staying outside ones hotel. Staying at a place that's not even technically a hotel (airbnb). The list goes on...

The new way of travel is not only entirely compatible with the old travel agency model, but it's actually a huge boost to the industry. The reason is that the experiential travel companies are also the most expensive.

Some examples:

Lindblad (owned by National Geographic): http://www.expeditions.com
Abercrombie and Kent: http://www.abercrombiekent.com
Tauck: http://www.tauck.com
Zegrahm: http://www.zegrahm.com

[ChriswUfGator]

The next time I have to go somewhere I'll call you. Can't promise it'll be anyplace particularly exciting, but nevertheless....

[ben says]

The next time I have to go somewhere I'll call you. Can't promise it'll be anyplace particularly exciting, but nevertheless....

Thanks, Chris. Can't be any less exciting than booking a one-night stay at the Hilton Garden Inn Phoenix Airport (which I just did this morning)  In all seriousness, all I care about is a happy client, so exciting/not-exciting isn't of my concern.

[boldbeanzack]

Congratulations Ben!  Sounds like the perfect job for you.  I'll be giving you a call next harvest season.

[coredumped]

Can you get cruise deals too? The Carnival that goes out of Jax runs as low as $250 for 4 nights. We go on that at least once a year.

[ben says]

Congratulations Ben!  Sounds like the perfect job for you.  I'll be giving you a call next harvest season.

Thanks man. Look forward to it.

Can you get cruise deals too? The Carnival that goes out of Jax runs as low as $250 for 4 nights. We go on that at least once a year.

Depends on what you mean by deals. If you mean can I get it cheaper than Carnival is selling it, than the answer is (infuriatingly) "depends".. When you're ready to book that cruise, either PM or email me, as I'd love to book it for you.

In general though, yea, I do get a ton of deals on cruises. Those deals don't always take the form of paying a lower rate.  In the Caribbean alone, I have access to 3,490 cruises that would include either special amenities or exclusive amenities just by virtue of having an agent book for you (special verses exclusive is a whole post, in and of itself). With cruises, more than any other area of travel - i.e., more so than tours, airfare, hotels - having an agent is a huge value-added benefit, because I can get you amenities that people who didn't use agents just don't have access to.

For example. I may not be able to "beat" a price, but I may be able to get you value-added amenities like*:

Shipboard credits - often hundreds of dollars worth
Spa treatments for 2
Free excursions
Upgrades to higher category cabins/rooms
Among a half dozen other amenities that may be available

*All of this stuff is very cruise line specific and changes almost daily.

[ben says]

As I said earlier, deals don't always take the form of "paying less for the same product" - it's genuinely about value-added benefits that come from using an advisor. I'm not trying to sell you the image below - I'm merely pointing out the distinction I was trying to make yesterday. After all, perks that include free flights (for example) are way more important, to me, than getting a cheaper fare/rate. Will be posting more 'insider' tips/tricks/advice as the days go on...