What Makes a Good Travel Agent?

With so many options out there, consumers often struggle to choose a travel agent. Standing out is important, but many will choose a safe and trusted option first. It’s not just about who’s going to give them the best service. With so many experienced travel agents, consumers must make sure they pick the right one for what they actually need. Most importantly, an agent who offers excellent financial protection and expert knowledge is key.

But how do you go about that? Where do you start? How does your niche fit in with these vital aspects of your business that provide safety and trust? How does this affect how you run your business?

Why Do Consumers Book Through a Travel Agent?

Let’s start at the beginning. Booking a holiday through a travel agent makes things a lot simpler. Despite the convenience of online bookings and easy access to information, there are many more issues that come with that. A lot of complications can be avoided by using a travel agent outright, but especially one who is a member of Protected Trust Services (PTS).

Travel agents deal with a lot of the legal and financial stuff for the consumer.  Whereas if they booked on their own, they’d have to pay and make agreements with many different providers. Then they might have to make sure all their bookings lined up. So when they go to a travel agent, they are expecting all these aspects to be off their mind. They want expertise and experience applied on their behalf.

Travel Agents will talk to their trusted service providers and tour operators, finding the best people and deals and combining it all under one price. They will provide  all the legal information the consumer needs. Plus, they have everything in one place. These aspects are vital to your business. However else you adapt your business to your niche, the consumers’ trust is dependent on you being the expert in these matters.

This not only saves the consumer time, but money and stress. You will already have supplier relationships in place that a consumer has no reason to form. They don’t want to be a travel expert, they want to go somewhere nice and relax.

Most importantly, you need to be someone they can consult if they’re uncertain. This in itself is invaluable.

You Must Be an Experienced Travel Agent

The main detail you need to make your consumers aware of: you are experienced in travel. Plus, be someone who protects their money with the PTS trust account. This will ensure your money is completely financially protected.

They will be reassured by how passionate you are about travel, so don’t shy away from proving that you love your work. They are travellers and they will want to know that you love providing the best holidays possible. After all, you wouldn’t go to a tattoo artist with no tattoos, or a dentist with terrible teeth. They want to know that you care about and understand the service you’re providing.

It’s good to keep in mind that consumers will look at reviews as well. Not having bad reviews may seem like the priority, but having no reviews, or not responding to bad reviews could be worse. Don’t be shy to ask a consumer to leave a review if they have a moment to spare, others will trust your experience if they can see these reviews. Any reflection from another traveller that indicates that you’re doing more than the minimum will also go a long way.

You Need a Trusted Network

This also feeds into experience, as you’ll probably find a lot of these good indicators will. A good travel agent will have a list of suppliers, tour operators, and other travel companies that they’ve worked with many times and trust to provide a good service. You should already have some of these relationships built, but this is not a part of your business that you will ever be completely set on. Continuing to connect with suppliers and tour operators that could work well with your business will make you more flexible to your consumers’ requests too.

You should be able to get good deals for your consumers through these relationships. More so than that, having relationships with trustworthy suppliers can be a great sign of your own expertise and priorities. Ensuring the suppliers you work with have the customer’s interests at heart will only strengthen your relationship with the consumer.

Keep in mind that, while you may be too niche for some consumers, you do not want to go too broad. Not being the right fit for a consumer is not a bad thing. The consumers that you are the right fit for will be far more likely to come back if you are clearly an expert in your niche, and not just trying to sell every kind of holiday possible.

Focus on The Unique Needs of Each Traveller

Regardless of if you sell packages or bespoke holidays, you should retain some flexibility. This may simply be a case of offering multiple different packages in the same destination. It could also mean being more flexible on pricing for different consumers.

Most importantly, you need to pay attention to what the consumer is asking for. They might not know exactly what they want, and it’s your job to guide them a little. Making recommendations based on their taste is a good skill for a travel agent. They should feel like you’re going the extra mile to ensure that everything is exactly how they need it.

Help Them Know Where to Prioritise Spend

Getting a holiday at a low price seems exciting at first, but there are certain places you shouldn’t be cutting corners. Your consumer may not know where these vital corners are. For example, you may know that a certain hotel is worth the extra money, but maybe a specific activity is pretty much the same with all providers.

Whatever price point the consumer has in their head, you will most likely be changing that number. Whether they thought Spain would be a lot cheaper than it is, or they were expecting a specific French ski lodge to be astronomical in price, it is your job to guide that price realistically, while still trying to get them the best deal.

Recommend where it is better for them to spend a little more for quality, and where they can afford to save some money. Giving them the cheapest holiday possible is most likely not the best option, and your consumers will trust you to tell them if something really should cost more.

24/7 Travel Agent Service

For a good travel agent, the job doesn’t stop once they’ve booked the holiday.

This is especially true with travel agents working with the Protected Trust Services’ (PTS) trust account. PTS travel agent members are there to deal with concerns throughout the holiday. Each consumer should feel like they’re talking to a friend by the time they leave for holiday, and if something goes wrong during the holiday, having protection like a trust account means you can help them sort issues out without it being a weight on your shoulders.

Become a PTS Member

We pride ourselves on only having experienced, good quality travel companies as PTS members. This is to ensure that consumers know they can trust any agent that has a PTS badge. If finding that badge is the final for that traveller to feel confident booking with you, we know that we’ve done our job.

So, if you’d like to know more about what PTS membership could entail for you and your consumers, you can contact PTS directly at 0207 190 9988, or email us at hellopts@protectedtrustservices.com.