Travel Agency
With your tour guide,
Anne P. Mitchell
| Summary: A travel agency is a business that sells travel related products such as airline tickets, hotel rooms, vacation packages, and rental cars to consumers. If you want to book a holiday or business trip and need some help planning and making your reservations, a travel agency can take care of every detail for you. |
A travel agency is a business that sells travel related products such as airline tickets, hotel rooms, vacation packages, and rental cars to consumers. If you want to book a holiday or business trip and need some help planning and making your reservations, a travel agency can take care of every detail for you.
Travel agencies come in a variety of different forms. There are the large companies like Thomas Cook and Uniglobe, that have chains all across the United States as well as internationally. Smaller, independent travel agencies generally have only one or two locations and tend to specialize in the services they offer. There are also online travel agencies that can be a part of a larger company or an independent agent working from a home office.
When dealing with an online travel agency, it’s important to know exactly who you’re dealing with. There are many travel companies that sell travel products and recruit people to work from home, selling their products and making commission on each sale and referral. Some of these companies are legitimate, but there are also a few scams out there.
A real travel agency will not ask you to purchase a membership, sign a contract, or ask you to purchase more than one travel package within a certain period of time. Many of the people who work from home selling travel products and services are not travel agents, so they won’t have the knowledge and background in the business that experienced agents have. If you’re in doubt, steer clear.
A travel agency should be able to sell you any flight, at any time of the year, on any airline, depending only on availability. The same goes with hotels, cruises, train tickets, car rentals, or any other element of your trip. If the agency you’re dealing with can only sell from a limited number of suppliers, they are not a full-service agency and your options will be severely restricted.
Travel agencies should be members of IATA, the International Air Transport Organization, as well as national organizations such as the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA). There are other organizations such as the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) that agencies can belong to as well. While these credits do not guarantee quality of purchase or scope of travel options offered, they do help to assure customers that the agency is legitimate.
A travel agency is an essential service for anyone who needs help planning a trip. Whether you just need to book a hotel, or you want to plan a customized trip around the world, a travel agency can look after every last detail.
