Do you remember the days when the Internet was in its infancy and when many people were afraid to shop online? It certainly seems strange to look back, given the way that Internet shopping has taken off in recent years.We now think of it as being a perfectly normal thing to do a vast amount of shopping in this way. So what’s changed in the past few years?There are a number of factors at play here. Security was clearly a key concern in those early days. Many of us worried about handing over our credit card details via the Internet. We wondered whether we might leave ourselves exposed to fraud and identity theft.Although such concerns have not completely disappeared, there’s no doubt that many of us have grown in confidence. We shopped online regularly and realised that the process is just as secure as handing over our credit card in a traditional shop.What sort of things are we buying online? The answer seems to be that we are prepared to purchase just about anything. In the early days, people tended to by items that had a relatively low value. The likes of Amazon were able to benefit from this trend.Such businesses realise that we were happy to buy books and CDs online. But it soon became clear that we were happy to spend even more money online. Before long, we are buying everything from furniture to holidays.Maybe you’ve booked a holiday in this way yourself? If not, you may well have missed out on some great deals. What many people like about making travel arrangements via the Internet is that they have the ability to do an enormous amount of research from their own homes.This means that you can find out a lot about a particular resort, hotel or tourist destination. In a sense, what the Internet allows you to do is to try and avoid some of the worst horrors that were once associated with making travel bookings.If you think about how you used to make your travel arrangements, you can see how much things have really improved. You may once have relied on traditional travel agents. In which case, you were probably heavily reliant on holiday brochures.Now that you look back, you can see just how little information was contained in such brochures. These days, you have access to far more information, allowing you to make more informed holiday booking decisions and hence get better deals.That’s why an increasing number of people choose to make their travel arrangements via Internet travel agents.
Archive for the ‘Traditional Travel’ Category
See The World With Online Travel Agents
Saturday, August 28th, 2010Travel Agency Jobs – What is the average salary
Monday, July 26th, 2010One of the first things aspiring travel agents search for in the Internet is what the average salary is when you work for a travel agency.
In this article, Iâ??ll give you quick rundown of what to expect for compensation as well as some of the additional benefits and perks.
Travel Agent Salary â?? What to expect
Before well delve into actual numbers, itâ??s necessary to understand that there is more than one place you can work as a travel agent. Travel agencies donâ??t have a monopolyâ?¦ despite what one might imagine.
In addition to the traditional agency, you might find yourself working for a tour operator, a visitor bureau, or even an international real estate development company. You may even find yourself working from home as an independent agent or in some type of virtual travel agent agreement.
Every position has different salary ranges. The following numbers are only rough estimates, as of November 2009.
Traditional travel agency jobs usually offer salary anywhere between $23K and $37K. This number can vary widely, and is heavily weighed on your personal training and skill set.
Working as an independent agent usually awards bigger rewards due to bigger risks/higher rate of failure. Most of these positions work on a commission basis, as opposed to a traditional salary.
The average home based travel agent can expect to make between $30K and $50K, with high flyers making significantly more.
A caveat about these numbers
These numbers may seem either high or low, depending on your personal work experiences. However, itâ??s important to remember that your income as a travel agent is dependent on what you bring to the table.
And, as I mentioned earlier, what you make is heavily weighed by the type of training you get. Many schools simply donâ??t give you the tools needed to succeed as a travel agent. You have to make sure you get your training from a reputable information source.
How to become a travel agent â?? The best way to get training
Sure, being a travel agent is one of the most exciting jobs you can find. However, you have to do certain things if you want to enjoy the salary� and the other perks.
If youâ??re interested in becoming an agent, I suggest giving a peak at what Amazon has to offer. In particular, there are three resources that give you the nuts and bolts of becoming a travel agentâ?¦ at a fraction of the cost.
While these three resources (often called the travel agent mini-set) arenâ??t advertised openly on the Amazon website, you can find a link to all three in the resource box below.
The Internet Advantage For Local Travel Agents
Monday, July 12th, 2010Travel and the Skeptical Public
There is no question that the internet has changed the travel business. Online airplane reservations and electronic tickets combined with the loss of the commission structure has taken a primary travel function away from traditional travel agents and automated the service. People can shop for hotel and car reservations on their own, on the web. Consumers can book vacation arrangements and cruises with a mouse and a keyboard.
And they can also get badly burned. It seems that the anonymity of the web has spawned unscrupulous business operators in every industry and the travel business is no exception. Travel has had its share of stories about unfulfilled promises due to airline strikes and cruise line bankruptcies. In fact, insurance companies now routinely offer travel insurance that covers a consumer’s loss if a trip that has been paid for fails to materialize. Add fraudulent travel websites to the mix and the result is an entire industry that is suspect in the public’s eye.
An Opportunity for the Independent Travel Agent
All of this can work to an honest travel agent’s advantage. Oddly enough, the way that a travel agent can capitalize on public use of the internet for travel and public distrust of travel businesses in general is to utilize – the internet.
The web is a made-to-order medium for advertising vacation packages. Photos of beautiful, historic and exotic locales combined with visual or audio descriptions are tremendous sales tools; there is no reason why an independent travel agent can’t use the same tools that Carnival Cruises or Expedia uses. The technology is simple, the software well established. An independent agent can apply all of the sales technique found in the enormous, faceless travel sites.
The additional service that an independent agent can supply is personal service. It is fair to speculate that with the advent of “help lines” for websites functioning around the clock with overseas operators, perhaps a customer shopping for travel arrangements will place more faith in a travel service that has phone availability during business hours only. Certainly an 800 number is desirable, but a number with the agent’s local area code will lend an air of credibility to the transaction. Real personal contact has become important in the faceless, nameless world of the web – an independent travel agent can provide that.
The Independent Travel Agent – Guaranteed to be Genuine
The problem is so widespread that there is an entire website devoted to travel fraud at http://www.fraud.org/tips/internet/travelfraud.htm. Many of the situations for which this site provides warnings can be put to rest by an independent travel agent offering personal service. Someone who books an expensive vacation is going to want confirmation on reservations, reassurance on bookings and details on the destination site. An independent agent can provide those things; perhaps most importantly an independent travel agent can have the same voice provide additional information every time a customer calls.
The net result, so to speak, is a travel site that provides the sizzle of online advertising, the convenience of online contact and the reassurance of personal customer support. An independent agent doesn’t necessarily have to compete with the “online specials” and other gimmicks found on major travel sites. The security provided by personal service will make the price worthwhile. An independent travel agent can make the internet an extension of the traditional personal service, rather than a replacement for it.