7 Things To Know Before Becoming A Travel Agent

A travel agent is responsible for the process of travel planning easier for their clients and ensuring they experience the best trip possible. He/she works directly with clients to determine the best possible travel destinations, transportation arrangements, and accommodations for the client's particular needs.

Let me tell you that being a travel agent isn’t always simple. As amazing as it is to jet around the world, you also have to keep in contact with clients 24/7 irrespective of the time zone. It is important for the person to be detail-oriented and meticulously organized will excel.

Some people think that as a travel agent you will jet-set around the world, visiting the hottest destinations and best hotels. The reality is that you spend most of your time researching and planning trips for your clients to travel around the world. If you are getting into this industry to get free trips, it is not the right fit.

1. Travel Agent Gets Paid On Commission

The bulk of your salary will come from the commission, so you need to be a good salesperson. When you are an in-house agent with a travel agency, you will get a base salary and a commission for the bookings. This can vary from agency to agency, For example, if you get paid 10 per cent commission on booking a hotel, 80 percent of that commission goes to your agency, while you keep 20 per cent. If you have rounded up enough clients, you can become an independent agent, which means you work for yourself but remain affiliated with a host agency. As an independent agent, you lose the base salary but get to keep your commission.

2. You Require Insurance For Yourself

Let’s say you make a mistake on a client’s booking, causing them to miss their first-class flight, If you did something wrong, you are responsible. There are hundreds of things that can go wrong, this is the reason you definitely need errors and omissions insurance. It is quite expensive, but if you accidentally screw something, you don’t have to pay out of pocket.

3. No Special Training Required

When you start working as a travel agent, you can do it right out of college. It’s definitely useful to know things like basic history and geography but there are no real required skills. Travel agents tend to come from a variety of backgrounds, so it doesn't matter what stream of career you are from, you can switch careers at any point in your life and become a travel agent with a pretty low barrier to entry. Apart from that, You need to be a meticulous planner, be an excellent researcher, and possess extreme attention to detail.

4. Choose a Speciality

The most successful travel agents choose a speciality. One would like to focus on cruises or African safaris or trips to Italy. Some would specialize in honeymoons and travel for destination weddings, which would down to Tahiti, Fiji, Mexico, Hawaii, and the Caribbean.

5. Develop a relationship with Hotel Representatives

When you are working in an agency, hotel representatives will come to give presentations about why you should recommend their hotel to your clients. I have a niche, you will meet them regularly and it's important to develop a relationship with them from regularly sending them business. Those relationships are super important because when you need to call in a favour, like upgrading someone’s room, you have someone to call up.

6. Be Available All The Time

You might get the occasional 2 a.m. call from a client in Europe asking for details that you definitely included on their itinerary. It can definitely veer into the realm of ridiculous, but you have to remember that people can get very anxious about travel your job is to be available and make sure they are taken care of. That’s part of the added value of booking your trip with a travel agent.

7. Clients Will Hire You Again For Your Service

The best travel agents have empathy for what the individual traveller wants to get out of the trip. It can be beautiful memories with their family or an adventure or a deeper understanding of the local culture. It is doing something simple like making sure clients have a bottle of wine waiting for them in their room or a couples photo next to the bed. Those personal touches are the reason people continue to use travel agents rather than booking for themselves online.

Getting Started As a Travel Agent

If you’re wondering what travel agents do and are looking to learn how to become a travel agent. You are in the right place. We can help jump-start your travel agent career by providing you with the right amount of tools and software that offers you a world-class support network.

So what are you waiting for? Become a travel agent and?get started?today.