Travellers or Travelers today, whether experienced or not, have
unlimited choices, so why use a travel agent?
Savvy travellers or travelers, when in need of
information relating to specific destinations or activities, seek out
travel agents with knowledge, experience and expertise of those
destinations and activities.
It is not always easy choosing a travel agent.
Many agents are called specialists, but sometimes the qualification to
be a specialist is a simple test run by a tourism office or tour
operator. Sometimes, these tests do not require the agent to have 'been
there, done that, got the t-shirt.' Some of these tests are too simple
and could harm the reputation of the travel industry if allowed to
continue unchecked. A 'specialist' can mean, 'I know the brochure
product' or 'I have seen a training video' or 'I have taken a test
given by a Tourism Office.'
If you find a specialist, ask about their
expertise. Ask them if they or their colleagues have any direct
knowledge, experience and expertise of where you want to go and what
you want to do, after all, it is your hard-earned money.
Experts are out there. Find them locally or use
the internet and then do your bookings with them. You may have to use
different experts for different destinations and activities, just as
you would select any other professional for accounting, legal, medical
or mechanical matters, except in your lifetime you will probably (or
hopefully) spend more on travel than all of the others put together.
Reality Check: “I once tried a major
chain of travel centres to get 2 tickets to Mexico from Canada. I was
only offered 2 airlines. I then used an internet search and came up
with 5 airlines and made my bookings online. Perhaps the travel centre
did not earn commission or was not able to charge a fee for the booking
or did not want an 'air only' booking or did they only offer their
'preferred products' which limits client choices?” The Nomad
If you do not need an expert agent you can use the
internet to find all kinds of global travel choices and then you can
make your booking directly with an online agent or travel operator. If
you decide to make your own bookings directly with the travel operator
you should not have to pay the full retail price which has a built-in
amount for commissions to be paid to sellers of their travel products.
Retail agencies that have their own in-house tour products which are
sold through other agencies should also be prepared to sell at a net
price for a direct booking from a consumer.
It is only fair that agents and agencies earn
commissions and fees from travel providers such as hotels, lodges,
tours, cruises or mark up their own tour products to allow for a
third-party sale. They all have overheads which have to be covered to
give local consumers the convenience of local shopping and it is
important to support your local businesses as long as they offer
excellent pricing and service. At the same time, it is only fair that
consumers who make their own bookings directly with travel operators
should not have to incur this extra cost. Fair fare prices should be
available for consumers who want to handle their own direct bookings.
If you are comfortable with dealing over the
internet directly with the travel providers and you want to get fair
fare prices you can check out a travel website that was launched in
April 2008 that, for members only, offers free travel vouchers that
saves them the commission or fee elements in retail travel prices. The
site offers thousands of travel vouchers for travel in over 70
countries ranging from simple B&B accommodations to complex
adventure travel, all at net of commission prices. This travel site is
operated by an online travel club that does not sell travel or make
reservations and all monies therefore, are handled directly between the
members and the travel operators.
The internet has just about everything a traveller
or even a traveler could want, whereas agents and agencies can only
offer limited selections of brochures from travel providers and
operators. There are thousands of travel businesses that never get to
see the inside of a travel agency or brochure, but they would still be
prepared to pay commissions to sellers of their products. This online
travel club allows travel businesses to promote their products and
services at no cost except the requirement to issue travel vouchers
that represent the normal commissions and fees in the retail price.
100% of these savings are then passed on to members who do their own
direct bookings. As a member, all travel vouchers are free but if you
do not want to join there is an associated website that sells the same
travel vouchers without requiring a membership fee.
A tip from the website. When you make your own
direct bookings, do make sure that the time in the time-zone that you
are calling is appropriate as “it is embarrassing to wake up a Greek
Sea Captain at one in the morning somewhere in the Greek Islands to
discuss their listing.” The Nomad at The Top Travel Club.
This site is continually adding new travel
selections and as long as you are comfortable and prepared to be a
D.I.Y. Traveller or D.I.Y. Traveler over the web, you might find some
interesting trips and adventures, some of which are not readily
available elsewhere.
In closing, I hope you find the little bits of
attempted English language humour humorous and as I consider myself 1 L
of a Traveler, I say 2 L with travellers but at last I am happy to have
found a web travel centre centered around saving me money. Apologies to
both Websters and Oxford dictionaries.
Article Source: http://
www.articlesbase.com/travel-tips-articles/diy-travel-should-save-
you-money-581685.html About the Author
A UK Chartered Accountant with over 40yrs of
international travel and over 25yrs in the travel industry. Editor of
http://www.thetravelinsider.net and developer of the TopTravelVoucher
service at http://www.toptravelsites.com | 