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Please give me some advice. I am considering owning my own travel agency here in Toronto.? |
Travel Info Could both Travel Agent owners respond as well as ,Travel agents working in the travel industry . Is this a profitable business and is this a good business to start . My friends strongly advise definatly No. From the experts, What do you think? I thank you all in advance for your response. ANGEL. Travel Tips I wouldn't recommend a Travel Agency. The starting point for considering it is if you can spend a lot of time working in the business and know you will love the work, you have a good portion of the money to inject into it from the beginning, and you are certified before starting. As far as the Industry goes, it has been in decline for about 10 years and mostly due to the Internet. Back in the day, airlines relied on Agents. It was too much work and infrastructure for them to do themselves. Now things are changing, the airline created e-tickets, sets up a web-page and a 800 number and they would rather do the sales themselves and cut out the middleman. Plus, they hit a cost cutting crunch when people demanded lower fares. Part of lowering fares was lowering the fees they paid to Travel Agents. The fees continue to decline. In order to make it Travel Agents have to charge fees of their own. So, many people book right through the airline for the same price and no fee. Hotels too all created their own websites, and can be booked directly online. The other Internet change was all the travel dot com companies. The do it yourself Internet is something you can't become overnight. And the names might mostly be established now. Travelocity, Expedia, hotels.com are just the ones off the top of my head. Bulk sales and bulk purchases means they have lower fees than the Travel Agent office. They took a chunk of the traditional Travel Agent business. Business travel was a prime source. Corporate Canada might not have the time to book their own travel. And they could be customers that use you several times a month instead of the once a year vacation. However, in times of cost cuts, businesses tended to take less travel. You would have to predict if you thought that pattern is going to change or already has. Source(s): I process business plans for risk and loan requests. Other Travel Tips I have worked in Hospitality and Travel for 20 years, I think your friends are right. The Internet has changed how we book our hotels and vacations. Price matching and resorting to have to charge a fee just to come and sit and get rates and prices makes the small agencies obsolete. If you were interested in opening a franchise such as a trip central, or Carlson wagonlit you may find moderate success. Although I will always book with an agent. Because if something goes wrong I want the person I dealt with to be there for help. Its a good biz once u have Experience of it. Running a Travel agency is really a good Biz in Toronto ON as most of the people there travel , some back home and some for Voacations. Ideal is that u r IATA approved enabling u to get Ticket stock from Airlines. U can get agency from some travel Agents as well to sell vocation Packages which is a good profitable Biz too. Best of luck Definitely NO!!!! It never was that profitable - but now it is a dead loss. 90% of Travelers use the Internet and Airlines have stopped paying commissions. I do not think it would be a wise investment because we have so many..also you can get so much better deals through the Internet....everyone is looking for bargains & travel agents can'nt compete with that..hope this helps |
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