The Modern Travel Agent (Part 2)

Awhile back I had written a post with the intent of answering a lot of questions that we receive frequently which really boil down to this one..."what is the difference between using you or going on the internet and doing it myself?"  I focused that post on explaining who we are as modern day travel agents.  Please feel free to go back and revisit that article at your leisure.  But I feel a part 2 is required because we still get asked a lot of questions that lead me to believe that a lot of potential customers have no real idea of what we do and how we work & benefit them when it comes to travel planning.

So instead of focusing again on who we are, lets focus this article and who we are NOT.

1.  We are NOT cyber robots.  That seems obvious but when people compare us living and breathing professional travel consultants to the likes of Booking.goodluckwithgettingwhatyouthoughtyoupaidfor and cyber gnomes, it makes me think the obvious is not so obvious.  When you call or email or text or do a face to face visit with us, you are speaking to real people who have real families and live in real homes just like you do.

2.  We are NOT order takers.  We do not encourage our clients to do all the work and all the research and spend countless hours on hoards of websites perusing scores of travel options and then simply take what they want and hit the "book it" button.  Instead, we do all of the work, spend our time and energy scouring the resources we use, as professionals, to find that perfect vacation that fits what our clients told us they wanted out of that perfect vacation and then we send that perfect option to the client for their final approval before anything is ever booked.

3.  We are NOT the cheapest option.  Many will come to talk to us only because they think or they have heard that travel agents are cheaper than the internet.  While some travel agents attempt to buy a client's loyalty by offering kickbacks or huge discounts, we are not that agency.  We offer the best value.  Value is very different than cheap.  If someone is looking for the cheapest option, then there are countless websites saying they are the cheapest which means no one will really know if they received the cheapest price.  Do you pick your Dr's based on them being the cheapest?  Do you pick your lawyers or financial planners because they said they were guaranteeing to be the cheapest?  We don't expect you to choose to work with us because we are the cheapest either.

Modern travel agents are again thriving because of the things we are as well as the things we are not. Clients are coming to us because we save time and energy.  They are coming to us because they trust our knowledge and experience and can offer ideas that they may never have thought of.  They are coming to us because they appreciate our service and love knowing we are THEIR agents, not the resort's or the cruise line's or the tour operator's etc.

So are you wanting to take a dream vacation and don't know where to begin with the search process or can't seem to pull the trigger because you are overwhelmed with countless options and opinions from friends and online reviewers?  Search out a professional travel consultant (i.e. us here at H&K) and let us show you why you will never want to try to book a vacation without our
help again.

More Than Quoting and Booking

Unfortunately the internet has made so many people think that all there is to certain professions is quoting and booking.  Insurance, mortgages,  home renovations, photography and tons of other services have been effected by people thinking they can go find someone online and get them to simply quote what they want so they can choose between the cheapest option and then book that service.  No other industry has been more effected by this mentality than the travel industry.

But it is so much more than that. Relationships play a key role in travel. The time we spend traveling to various destinations and attending conferences, dinners and luncheons is not because we love food or just love being away from our families so much. It's not just for the purpose of touring and evaluating various resorts and hotels. It is for the relationships we build with the key personnel at those resorts and hotels or with our preferred tour operators and wholesalers.

The benefits of those relationships are passed down to our clients. Those little welcome amenities or those occasional free upgrades or those special dinners or excursions are all results of the time we spend getting to know the resort managers or concierge staff or our wholesaler's business development managers (BDM's as we refer to them). And when the occasional error is made because we are all human, it is our relationship again with key contacts that gets things corrected.

This is why we tell people, sure you can book it on your own through some online travel site, but you may never ever know what you are missing out on until you work with a professional who has become good friends with the key contacts at that resort that you chose.

Now you may think, well I will try to get to know the resort staff myself when I am there. Feel free to do so, but what the general public cannot do is be a resource of hundreds of possible new clients.  You may decide to vacation at that resort again, but travel professionals may send scores of new clients to that one resort...or they may not, depending on client experiences and relationships with that resort.

And this is where the HUMAN travel professional is different than the online travel agency, or OTA as they are called; it is impossible to build goodwill and trust with a computer. The persons behind the scenes at the online agencies are only interested in getting things as cheap as they can so they can convince their users to simply get a quote via them and click "book it." The resorts know that the online agencies are only interested in beating them down to get prices lower and lower. What do you think that does to the relationship between resort and OTA? Do you think that the OTA client is high on the resort's priority list when they check in?

This is why we no longer consider an OTA as our competition. We know that our relationships within our industry is what makes for an incredible vacation experience for our clients. We know vacation planning is more than quoting and booking. Want to learn more about how we are different than some online travel site? Click on this link and let us show you.