Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Travel Agency shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Travel Agency offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Travel Agency at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Travel Agency? Wrong! If the Travel Agency is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Travel Agency then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Travel Agency? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Travel Agency and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Travel Agency wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Travel Agency then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Travel Agency site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Travel Agency, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Travel Agency, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

A travel agency is a business that sells travel related products and services, particularly package holidays, to end-user customers on behalf of third party travel suppliers, such as airlines, hotels, tour companies, and cruise lines. In addition to dealing with ordinary tourists, most travel agents have a special department devoted to travel arrangements for business travelers, while some agencies specialize in commercial and business travelers. Some agencies also serve as general service agents for foreign travel companies in different countries.

Origins The British company, Cox & Kings is sometimes said to be the oldest travel agent in the world, but this rests upon services that the original bank (established in 1758) supplied to its wealthy clients. However, the modern travel agent first appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century. Thomas Cook, in addition to developing the package tour, established a chain of agencies in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, in association with the Midland Railway. These not only sold their own tours to the public, but represented other tour companies. Other British pioneer agencies were Dean and Dawson, the Polytechnic Touring Association, and the Co-operative Wholesale Society.

Travel agencies became more commonplace with the development of commercial aviation starting in the 1920s. Originally, the agencies largely catered to middle-class customers, but the post-war boom in mass-market package holidays resulted in travel agencies on the main streets of most British towns, catering to a working class clientèle looking for a cheap overseas beach holiday.

Operations As the name implies, their main function is to act as an agent (law), that is to say selling travel products and services on behalf of a supplier. Consequently, unlike other retail businesses, they do not keep a stock in hand. A package holiday or a ticket is not purchased from a supplier unless a customer requests that purchase. The holiday or ticket is supplied to them at a discount. The profit is therefore the difference between the advertised price which the customer pays and the discounted price at which it is supplied to the agent. This is known as the commission. A British travel agent would consider a 10-12% commission as a good arrangement.

Since September 11, 2001 airlines have stopped giving commission to travel agencies in order to make up for growing cost in security. Therefore, travel agencies are now forced to charge a standard flat fee, per sale. However, companies still give them a set percentage for selling their product. Major tour companies can afford to do this because if they were to sell a thousand trips at a cheaper rate they still come out better than if they sell a hundred trips at a higher rate. This process benefits everyone.

Other commercial operations are undertaken, especially by the larger chains. These can include the sale of in-house insurance, travel guides and timetables, car rental, and the services of an on-site bureau de change dealing in the most popular holiday currencies.

The majority of travel agents have felt the need to protect themselves and their clients against the possibilities of commercial failure, either their own or a supplier. They will advertise the fact that they are surety bond (posting a financial bond with an organisation). In the case of a failure, the customers are guaranteed either an equivalent holiday to that which they have lost, or (if they prefer) a refund. Many British agencies (and tour companies too) are bonded with International Air Transport Association for those who issue their own tickets, Air Travel Organiser's License for those who order tickets in, or Association of British Travel Agents for those who sell package holidays on behalf of a tour company.

Of course, a travel agent is supposed to offer impartial travel advice to the customer. This function almost disappeared with the mass-market package holiday, and some agency chains seemed to develop a 'holiday supermarket' concept, in which customers chose their holiday from brochures on racks and then booked it from a counter. However, a variety of social and economic changes have now contrived to bring this aspect to the fore once more, particularly the advent of multiple no-frills airlines.

Types of Agency There are three different types of agencies: these are Multiples, Miniples and Independent Agencies. The former comprise a number of national chains, often owned by international conglomerates (Thomson Holidays is now a subsidiary of TUI, the German multinational) BBC Article, Consolidation in Travel Industry. It is now quite common for the large mass-market tour companies to purchase a controlling interest in a chain of travel agencies, in order to control the distribution of their product. (This is an example of vertical integration.)

The smaller chains are often based in particular regions or districts.

Independent Agencies usually cater for a special or niche market. Some cater to the needs of residents in an upmarket commuter town or suburb, or concentrate upon a particular area or group (catering to the travel needs of Polish expatriates, perhaps), or an activity such as sports(servicing the needs of football supporters).

There are 2 approaches of travel agents. One is the traditional multi-destination travel agent based in the originating location of the traveller and the other is the destination focussed travel agent that is based in the destination and delivers an expertise on that location. At present, the former is usually a larger operator like Thomas Cook while the latter is a smaller, often independent, operator like myguideTravel

Consolidators Travel consolidators or wholesalers are high volume sales companies that are sometimes specialized in a niche. They may or may not offer various types of services at one single point of access. These can be for example hotel reservations, flights, or car-rental. Sometimes the services are combined into vacation packages that include transfer to the location and lodging. These companies do not usually sell directly to the public but act as fulfillment for retail companies. As the travel industry has changed we see more and more consolidators selling directly to the public. The sole purpose of wholesalers is to sell ethnic niches in the travel industry. There is no consolidator that offers everything. All travel companies can sell you whatever you may be looking for but they only have contracted rates to specific destinations. Today there are no domestic consolidators with some exceptions for business class contracts.

Criticisms Travel agencies have been accused of employing a number of restrictive practices, the chief of which is known as 'racking'. This is the practice of only displaying the brochures of those travel companies whose holidays they wish to sell, the ones that pay them the most commission. Of course, the average customer tends to think that these are the only holidays on offer, and are unaware of possible alternatives.

Generally speaking, small or specialist tour companies do not sell their product through travel agents, since they could not afford to pay the rates of commission that would be demanded. There are a few exceptions to this rule. Independent agents might sell or take bookings for local tour companies (such as coach companies) or tour companies offering specialist holidays that fit into their target market.

Consequently, even before the advent of the internet, small niche tour companies ignored travel agents and sold direct to their customers.

==The Internet threat==

With the advent of general public access to the internet, many airlines and other travel companies began to sell directly to passengers. As a consequence, airlines no longer needed to pay the commissions to travel agents on each ticket sold. Since 1997, travel agencies gradually became victims of disintermediation, the reduction in costs caused by removing layers from the package holiday distribution network.

Many travel agencies have developed an internet presence by posting a website, with detailed travel information. Full travel booking sites are often complex, and require the assistance of outside travel technology solutions providers such as Travelocity, Patheo and Open Fares. These companies use travel service distribution companies who operate Computer reservations system (GDS), such as Sabre Holdings, Amadeus IT Group, Abaccus, Galileo and Worldspan, to provide up to the minute, detailed data on tens of thousands of flight, hotel, and car rental vacancies.

Some online travel sites allow visitors to compare hotel and flight rates with multiple companies for free. They often allow visitors to sort the travel packages by amenities, price, and or proximity to a city or landmark.

Travel agents have applied dynamic packaging tools to provide fully bonded (full financial protection) travel at prices equal to or lower than a member of the public can book online. As such, the agencies' financial assets are protected in addition to professional travel agency advice.

All travel sites that sell hotels online work together with numerous outside travel agents. Once the travel site sells a hotel, one of the supplying travel agents is contacted and will try to get a confirmation for this hotel. Once confirmed or not, the customer is contacted with the result. This means, that booking a hotel on a travel website will not get you an instant answer. Only some of the hotels on a travel website can be confirmed instantly (which is normally marked as such on each site). As different travel websites work with different suppliers together, each site has different hotels that it can confirm instantly. Some examples of such online travel websites that sell hotel rooms are Expedia, Travelocity and Tripadvisor.

Careers With the many people switching to self-service internet websites, the number of available jobs as travel agents is decreasing. Most jobs that become available are from older travel agents retiring. Counteracting the decrease in jobs due to internet services is the increase in the number of people travelling. Since 1995, many travel agents have exited the industry, and relatively few young people have entered the field due to less competitive salaries. However, others have abandoned the "brick and mortar" agency for a home-based business to reduce overheads, and those who remain have managed to survive by promoting other travel products such as cruise lines and train excursions, or by promoting their ability to aggressively research and assemble complex travel packages on a moment's notice (essentially acting as a very advanced concierge).

Cargo A small number of companies work with cargo airlines and ships which are connected to cargo business.

References Bibliography Renshaw, M B (1997), The Travel Agent, 2nd edition, Business Education Publishers Ltd, Sunderland

See also

• Computer reservations system

A travel agency is a business that sells travel related products and services, particularly package holidays, to end-user customers on behalf of third party travel suppliers, such as airlines, hotels, tour companies, and cruise lines. In addition to dealing with ordinary tourists, most travel agents have a special department devoted to travel arrangements for business travelers, while some agencies specialize in commercial and business travelers. Some agencies also serve as general service agents for foreign travel companies in different countries.

Origins The British company, Cox & Kings is sometimes said to be the oldest travel agent in the world, but this rests upon services that the original bank (established in 1758) supplied to its wealthy clients. However, the modern travel agent first appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century. Thomas Cook, in addition to developing the package tour, established a chain of agencies in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, in association with the Midland Railway. These not only sold their own tours to the public, but represented other tour companies. Other British pioneer agencies were Dean and Dawson, the Polytechnic Touring Association, and the Co-operative Wholesale Society.

Travel agencies became more commonplace with the development of commercial aviation starting in the 1920s. Originally, the agencies largely catered to middle-class customers, but the post-war boom in mass-market package holidays resulted in travel agencies on the main streets of most British towns, catering to a working class clientèle looking for a cheap overseas beach holiday.

Operations As the name implies, their main function is to act as an agent (law), that is to say selling travel products and services on behalf of a supplier. Consequently, unlike other retail businesses, they do not keep a stock in hand. A package holiday or a ticket is not purchased from a supplier unless a customer requests that purchase. The holiday or ticket is supplied to them at a discount. The profit is therefore the difference between the advertised price which the customer pays and the discounted price at which it is supplied to the agent. This is known as the commission. A British travel agent would consider a 10-12% commission as a good arrangement.

Since September 11, 2001 airlines have stopped giving commission to travel agencies in order to make up for growing cost in security. Therefore, travel agencies are now forced to charge a standard flat fee, per sale. However, companies still give them a set percentage for selling their product. Major tour companies can afford to do this because if they were to sell a thousand trips at a cheaper rate they still come out better than if they sell a hundred trips at a higher rate. This process benefits everyone.

Other commercial operations are undertaken, especially by the larger chains. These can include the sale of in-house insurance, travel guides and timetables, car rental, and the services of an on-site bureau de change dealing in the most popular holiday currencies.

The majority of travel agents have felt the need to protect themselves and their clients against the possibilities of commercial failure, either their own or a supplier. They will advertise the fact that they are surety bond (posting a financial bond with an organisation). In the case of a failure, the customers are guaranteed either an equivalent holiday to that which they have lost, or (if they prefer) a refund. Many British agencies (and tour companies too) are bonded with International Air Transport Association for those who issue their own tickets, Air Travel Organiser's License for those who order tickets in, or Association of British Travel Agents for those who sell package holidays on behalf of a tour company.

Of course, a travel agent is supposed to offer impartial travel advice to the customer. This function almost disappeared with the mass-market package holiday, and some agency chains seemed to develop a 'holiday supermarket' concept, in which customers chose their holiday from brochures on racks and then booked it from a counter. However, a variety of social and economic changes have now contrived to bring this aspect to the fore once more, particularly the advent of multiple no-frills airlines.

Types of Agency There are three different types of agencies: these are Multiples, Miniples and Independent Agencies. The former comprise a number of national chains, often owned by international conglomerates (Thomson Holidays is now a subsidiary of TUI, the German multinational) BBC Article, Consolidation in Travel Industry. It is now quite common for the large mass-market tour companies to purchase a controlling interest in a chain of travel agencies, in order to control the distribution of their product. (This is an example of vertical integration.)

The smaller chains are often based in particular regions or districts.

Independent Agencies usually cater for a special or niche market. Some cater to the needs of residents in an upmarket commuter town or suburb, or concentrate upon a particular area or group (catering to the travel needs of Polish expatriates, perhaps), or an activity such as sports(servicing the needs of football supporters).

There are 2 approaches of travel agents. One is the traditional multi-destination travel agent based in the originating location of the traveller and the other is the destination focussed travel agent that is based in the destination and delivers an expertise on that location. At present, the former is usually a larger operator like Thomas Cook while the latter is a smaller, often independent, operator like myguideTravel

Consolidators Travel consolidators or wholesalers are high volume sales companies that are sometimes specialized in a niche. They may or may not offer various types of services at one single point of access. These can be for example hotel reservations, flights, or car-rental. Sometimes the services are combined into vacation packages that include transfer to the location and lodging. These companies do not usually sell directly to the public but act as fulfillment for retail companies. As the travel industry has changed we see more and more consolidators selling directly to the public. The sole purpose of wholesalers is to sell ethnic niches in the travel industry. There is no consolidator that offers everything. All travel companies can sell you whatever you may be looking for but they only have contracted rates to specific destinations. Today there are no domestic consolidators with some exceptions for business class contracts.

Criticisms Travel agencies have been accused of employing a number of restrictive practices, the chief of which is known as 'racking'. This is the practice of only displaying the brochures of those travel companies whose holidays they wish to sell, the ones that pay them the most commission. Of course, the average customer tends to think that these are the only holidays on offer, and are unaware of possible alternatives.

Generally speaking, small or specialist tour companies do not sell their product through travel agents, since they could not afford to pay the rates of commission that would be demanded. There are a few exceptions to this rule. Independent agents might sell or take bookings for local tour companies (such as coach companies) or tour companies offering specialist holidays that fit into their target market.

Consequently, even before the advent of the internet, small niche tour companies ignored travel agents and sold direct to their customers.

==The Internet threat==

With the advent of general public access to the internet, many airlines and other travel companies began to sell directly to passengers. As a consequence, airlines no longer needed to pay the commissions to travel agents on each ticket sold. Since 1997, travel agencies gradually became victims of disintermediation, the reduction in costs caused by removing layers from the package holiday distribution network.

Many travel agencies have developed an internet presence by posting a website, with detailed travel information. Full travel booking sites are often complex, and require the assistance of outside travel technology solutions providers such as Travelocity, Patheo and Open Fares. These companies use travel service distribution companies who operate Computer reservations system (GDS), such as Sabre Holdings, Amadeus IT Group, Abaccus, Galileo and Worldspan, to provide up to the minute, detailed data on tens of thousands of flight, hotel, and car rental vacancies.

Some online travel sites allow visitors to compare hotel and flight rates with multiple companies for free. They often allow visitors to sort the travel packages by amenities, price, and or proximity to a city or landmark.

Travel agents have applied dynamic packaging tools to provide fully bonded (full financial protection) travel at prices equal to or lower than a member of the public can book online. As such, the agencies' financial assets are protected in addition to professional travel agency advice.

All travel sites that sell hotels online work together with numerous outside travel agents. Once the travel site sells a hotel, one of the supplying travel agents is contacted and will try to get a confirmation for this hotel. Once confirmed or not, the customer is contacted with the result. This means, that booking a hotel on a travel website will not get you an instant answer. Only some of the hotels on a travel website can be confirmed instantly (which is normally marked as such on each site). As different travel websites work with different suppliers together, each site has different hotels that it can confirm instantly. Some examples of such online travel websites that sell hotel rooms are Expedia, Travelocity and Tripadvisor.

Careers With the many people switching to self-service internet websites, the number of available jobs as travel agents is decreasing. Most jobs that become available are from older travel agents retiring. Counteracting the decrease in jobs due to internet services is the increase in the number of people travelling. Since 1995, many travel agents have exited the industry, and relatively few young people have entered the field due to less competitive salaries. However, others have abandoned the "brick and mortar" agency for a home-based business to reduce overheads, and those who remain have managed to survive by promoting other travel products such as cruise lines and train excursions, or by promoting their ability to aggressively research and assemble complex travel packages on a moment's notice (essentially acting as a very advanced concierge).

Cargo A small number of companies work with cargo airlines and ships which are connected to cargo business.

References Bibliography Renshaw, M B (1997), The Travel Agent, 2nd edition, Business Education Publishers Ltd, Sunderland

See also

• Computer reservations system

Travel agency
The travel industry has been in the news a lot recently - for obvious reasons. So the idea of starting up in the business yourself might seem ill timed, to outsiders. In fact ...

Gordion Travel Agency
Gordion Travel Agency ... We speciallise in tourist services ie: Airport Transfers Flights, Hotel Reservations, Excursions, Rent a Car Our specially licensed drivers are at your ...

St. Andrews Travel - Independent Travel Agency - Cruise Club
St. Andrews Travel is the leading advocate for travel agents, the travel industry and the traveling public. Our products include tours, cruises, hotels, car rentals, etc.

Acepoint Travel
appointed agents for Pakistan International Airlines PIA ... To contact Acepoint travel Instantly via MSN messenger please search for “acepoint-travel@hotmail.com” within MSN ...

Travel Agency Home/Index
BSP 100% E-Ticket requirement 28 May, 2008 Effective June 1, 2008, IATA eliminates the use of paper tickets for BSP Agents. In situations where paper tickets are required ...

Home Page
Universal Travel home page ... 50 Aytoun Road Glasgow G41 5HE. Tel: 0141 427 4596 Mobile : 07710 48 17 18

student travel - agency flights, holidays, tours uk international ...
looking for cheap student travel? This online agency web site will guide you in the right direction, from international flights summer holidays to interailing around Europe click ...

The Travel Insurance Agency:Travel Insurance and Cheap Holiday ...
Low Cost Travel insurance and Holiday Insurance for annual travel insurance in the UK and Europe. Instant quote and cover online for single trips, annual travel insurance, ski ...

Wirral Travel Agency - Home Page
Wirral Travel Agency - Home Page ... Wirral Travel Agency On the Phone, On The Web, On The High Street 0151 638 7707 : Call In 259 Wallasey Village, CH45 3LR : Email

Travel Counsellors - The Award Winning Travel Agent for Luxury ...
Travel Counsellors - The UK's number 1 travel agency. Travel Counsellors is a different kind of travel agency. Completely independent, we have over 900 experienced travel agents ...