What Is a Travel Agency and How Can One Help?

What is a travel agency? This refers to a retail business that sells travel related products and services. They may sell their products directly to customers, or through the order of an airline company, hotel company, car rental company, railway, cruise liner or tour company. In the U.S., there are four major types of agencies: mega, regional, consortium and independents. Consortium refers to an association of companies, while independents cater to niche markets only; regional and mega are self-explanatory. Travel agencies may take traditional approaches towards selling products or may try to sell a multi-destination trip.

In case you’re wondering, travel agencies are not the same thing as Internet companies that report on or help sell airline tickets, hotel stays and package deals. In fact, the Internet is the travel service industry’s biggest threat. Since most people now have access to the Internet, airline companies and hotels can now sell their services directly to customers. The travel companies certainly see the advantage in doing this, since they no longer have to pay travel agents’ commissions. The biggest growth for travel agents is for cruise liners and in creating package deals.

Package deals are when vacationers pay a flat rate for airfare, hotel stay, car rental and sometimes dining and entertainment. Obviously, travel agents have a lot of potential to work with here, as they can use their own creativity to plan definitive city vacations or even multi-city tours. Rather than be frightened off by Internet technology, the best travel agents utilize the Internet to promote their own travel websites.

Travel agencies may also make use of computer reservations systems. Besides travel agencies, and travel reporting websites, there is another Internet competitor to consider and that is comparison websites. These websites search the resellers’ websites all at once and return listings for users so they can compare and save.

What type of service should you search? It largely depends on what type of vacation you’re looking for. If you want someone to piece together the perfect vacation that captures the essence of a city, then a travel agent can help you. If you’re simply looking for a cheap getaway in any comfortable spot, then you might be better using a comparison or even a reporting website that helps you find discounts on hotel stays.