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Now, More Than Ever, You Need To Find A Good Travel Agent

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Bill Gates, a pretty smart guy, supposedly once said something along the lines, “Now, you can throw away your travel agent’s phone number.” Whether he believed it or not is hard to say. At the time he would have been plugging his new online travel agency (OTA) Expedia. Certainly, Gates wasn’t wrong in forecasting that online sales of travel would become significant. However, things have changed quite a bit in the two decades since he made that proclamation.

Doug Gollan

What’s changed?

It’s a long list, but even back in the Nineties, there were airline delays and bankruptcies throwing the proverbial monkey wrench into travel plans. However, the system had a bit more flexibility. American Airlines used to keep extra aircraft at its hubs as back ups in case of mechanical delays. Not anymore. Remember when if one shuttle flight filled up, they would bring out a spare plane so you didn’t have to wait for an extra hour? Airline load factors have increased from the 60% range into the 80s, meaning that flights on popular routes are often sold out for days at a time. Front line employees used to have the ability to grant waivers and favors when you had extra baggage or needed to change a flight. Not so much these days. Hotels and rental car companies were more liberal with their cancellation policies. In many cases, you didn’t have to show your credit card until you showed up. Today, both entities seem to be copying the airlines to make it as onerous as possible for you to change plans. Yes, there are two sides to every story, and they have legitimate reasons for stricter rules, but it is what it is. Good luck trying to get an exception.

Doug Gollan

At any rate, the travel agents that Gates dogged have done okay. Yes, there was attrition, but as Chris Cahill, CEO of Accor’s luxury hotel brands says, “The crème rises to the top.” Those that are here today seem to be doing very well. It’s estimated there are about 100,000 travel agents in the U.S. today. Here in Las Vegas, there were over 5,700 attendees at Virtuoso Travel Week, including over 2,700 of the group’s travel advisors. Virtuoso is an umbrella for independently owned agencies that generate over $21 billion in travel sales. Not shabby for a group often labeled as dinosaurs. Still, Expedia, Inc., which now includes the likes of Hotwire, Hotels.com, Travelocity and Orbitz has grown both organically and through acquisition to $72 billion.

The agents, or advisors as they call themselves, have very few concerns about online competitors these days. Multiple research surveys show consumer use of retail travel agents – read human beings, has been on the rise for at least five years and is strongest with Millennials, a good sign for the future. Virtuoso's CEO Matthew Upchurch says this younger consumer segment is very comfortable paying for expertise such as personal trainers, and view agents as folks who can help them improve the quality of their travel experiences. Booking travel isn't as easy as Gates wanted you to think and as many of us have found out. Google’s own research shows it takes 32 visits to 10 different websites to book a single airline ticket. Add to that the OTA's spotty record of customer service.

Doug Gollan

You might read this and say so what? I don’t use a travel agent, and am happy I am doing it myself. Well, you might want to reconsider. While agents are happy with their growing business and profits, a soon to be released survey of agents who sell luxury travel by Travel Market Report, a daily e-newsletter and website for agents, shows agents aren't concerned about their future, but 73% are concerned that suppliers will be able to maintain service standards as the market expands.

Interestingly, Upchurch says a key reason to use agents is advocacy. In other words, when you use a travel agent, you have somebody who has relationships decision makers at the airlines, hotels, cruises lines and car rental companies you will be traveling with. When something goes sideways, you have somebody to help you out who has more clout than you do.

Doug Gollan

During recent IT meltdowns by Delta Air Lines and British Airways, there were numerous stories about how agents saved the day for their clients getting them routed where they needed to go, and then working to get their customers refunds and credits. At the same time they were rebooking car rentals, calling their friends in the sales department at the hotel to get the penalty for showing up a day late waived, and in some cases getting customers where they were going early. Good agents, sensing trouble and monitoring for disruptions often proactively get you rerouted away from storms and strikes by French air controllers.

Maybe you think you’ll wait until things go badly or you run into problems before you will consider a travel agent. When I asked numerous advisors here at Travel Week what they do to attract new customers, most of what I heard is that they currently have as many customers as they can handle. Some aren’t taking new customers. There is only so much time in the day and agents can’t spread themselves too thin and keep customers happy. Good service takes time. In other cases, agents told me they are trying to cull their least profitable clients, pushing them to junior agents they are trying to train. Some agencies are proactively trying to recruit and train new agents to handle increased demand.

Travel agent is becoming a popular job for both Millennials and folks seeking more fulfilling second careers. At the conference, I met journalists, engineers, architects, publicists, lawyers, ex-hoteliers and cruise line executives, even media salespeople, all who have become advisors. Good agents can earn six figures within three years. Some earn much more than that. What’s more, many agencies provide travel allowances, and with agents again being recognized as a powerful distribution channel for suppliers, agents often get highly discounted rates.

Hotels typically pay agencies 10 percent commission while tour operators and cruise lines might pay 12 to 20 percent to retail agents. For providers, it’s cheaper than the OTAs where the cost of sale can reach above 30%. For the agents, they make good money and see the world. They keep their own hours, although in many ways are on duty 24/7. They’re not trudging to a cube every day waiting to see if they are going to get axed in the next round of cost cutting. About 40% of U.S. travel agents are thought to be independent contractors.

If you have a bad flight on Airline X or stay at Hotel Z when you take your business elsewhere, there is no real impact to the supplier. Agents, on the other hand, rely on keeping their profitable clients happy, so the good ones take the time to know you, what you like and what you don’t. That means if you use an agent you are less likely to find yourself in a hotel or on a cruise ship that doesn’t fit your personal tastes. That’s a big plus for suppliers as well. Many complaints you read on review sites such as Trip Advisor are less about the hotel and more about that the hotel wasn’t right for that guest. When there is a service let down, agents who provide a constant flow of revenue, have more clout getting it fixed than you do on your own. In the Travel Market Report research agents said getting you a better room or a room with a better view often impacts which hotel they will book you into when all things are equal. That's much harder if not impossible to accomplish when you book online.

As a point of interest, Gates, Jobs and Zuckerberg should get a large amount of credit for creating the technology platforms today’s agents use to be successful. Out on the road inspecting new hotels and resorts, they use their smartphones to share with customers photos of places they will want to go via social media and text message. From those same phones, they can change your reservations. No longer are they tethered to a desktop computer with a blinking green screen.

Now OTAs and others are yapping about artificial intelligence. Upchurch, speaking at a general session, said he believes AI will actually be a boost to agents helping them automate administrative tasks that take up time. That would be a good thing, meaning that talented agents can handle more clients without dropping service levels.

Having a good agent, in my opinion, is going to be even more important. Travel and particularly luxury travel is in a big growth spurt. Suppliers are expanding fast with new hotels, ships and experiences. But, what often separates a great trip from average or bad one isn’t the marble or hand stitched English leather. It’s the service provided by the people, and with rapid expansion, it will be more and more likely that there will be lapses, even in the luxury segment.

“As suppliers remove human touch points, travel agents become more important …being a Virtuoso is an art, a human act,” Upchurch says. And while agents are more mobile and often converse with clients via text message, a new trend is storefront agencies that are integrated with barristers, bars and spas. The modern city offices invite clients to come in and relax, meet an advisor and kick around ideas about trips. It’s a bit ironic as online travel suppliers are rolling about more virtual assistants, so you think you are messaging with a real person until you ask something that the BOT hasn’t been trained on.

Upchurch says his members, largely small and medium sized businesses, focus on the personal relationships they have with clients. On the other hand, he says big publicly traded companies largely sit around the table in meeting rooms trying to figure out ways to reduce head count. One only has to go to the airport today where kiosks have largely replaced airline check-in agents and the lines have only gotten longer to see he is right.

Either way now would be a good time to find a good travel agent. The best way is probably to get a reference from a friend who has a good one, but Virtuoso and other groups such as Affluent Traveler Collection, Ensemble, Signature, Travel Leaders, Travelsavers and Traveller Made each have agent finders on their website where you can search by geography, specializations and other criteria. The trade association for agents, The American Society of Travel Agents, has long used the tagline, “Without a travel agent, you’re on your own.” Now, and in the future, it couldn’t be truer.

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