Are travel agents still useful? Can you trust travel agents? Would you hand over money to someone you’ve never met with the expectation that you will get something in return? After all, you may be spending a significant amount of money on a vacation so asking about trust seems pretty reasonable. Why use a travel agent? If you believe that you can easily book the same trip on my own and at cheaper prices. Well, below you may find some arguments that could change your opinion about Travel Agents.
First of all, a great travel agent is someone you can trust. For sure a travel agent can provide so much value, but it starts with trust.
Planning a trip is a time-consuming and complicated process. The primary responsibility of a travel agent is to make the process of travel planning easier for their clients and ensure they experience the best trip possible. Travel Agents make suggestions to their client based on their own experience. They are often restricted to a budget and must be highly organized in order to offer their clients travel arrangements that suit both their financial limitations and leisure or business travel expectations.
Travel Agents are especially useful on specialized trips, whether it’s a honeymoon or an adventure travel vacation. Do you want to take a chance on booking your own hotel or tour to a sophisticated destination, like Machu Picchu in Peru? Will someone be there to pick you up at the airport in Cusco? Travel Agent knows people who’ve been stranded when they arrive. That’s one reason you need an agent. And when you’re stranded because of a canceled or delayed flight, there’s nothing like e-mailing or texting your travel agent to get you on another flight and not miss your tour. They can often do it much faster than the airline.
Travel agents research information on their client’s travel plans and relay important information including weather conditions travel advisories and required documents for their destination. They also uncover new destinations and find the best trips for a particular travel purpose, whether it be business-related or for personal leisure. Safety is also a factor in international travel, so they keep abreast of the latest news, ensuring that each planned destination is safe for their customers.
Many customers believe that they can get cheaper prices directly rather than through a Travel Agent. However, an independent survey made in 2016 proves that travel agents save consumers time and money. Consumers report that travel agents save them an average $452 per trip, and four hours in travel planning. Perhaps most importantly, consumers said that agents help them avoid costly mistakes.
Moreover, putting together on your own an itinerary, particularly one involving a complicated trip or booking multiple tickets and transfers for an extended family vacation, is a lot of work and is not easy. Creating a perfect itinerary for a sophisticated trip could take weeks and it could be 50 e-mails back and forth and multiple phone calls. However, after everything is set, a client could take it and try to shop it around for the lowest price. That’s why some Travel Agents charge fees up front and then drop the fees when the client actually books. However, this is not our policy as we believe that our customers value the work we have done together.
