travel agency
How To Find A Reputable Travel Agency
December 19, 2011 | 
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Most travel agencies are honest and reputable. Using a travel agency not only has the advantage of taking care of all your travel planning for you but it also there when you need assistance during your trip.
A good indicator of an agency’s reliability is if it is a member of the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA). ASTA has strict rules and regulations regarding a travel agent’s membership. If, by chance, you do have a problem with the agent or agency it is by far easier and more likely you will have your problem resolved with an ASTA travel agent.
In addition, reputable travel agencies list all of their contact information. If an online agency only lists an email address this may be a red flag. A reputable agency will have not only an email address but have a mailing address and a telephone number where you can reach a real live person to talk to in the event you have questions or concerns regarding your booking.
Hidden fees may not be evident with agencies that are not reputable. A trustworthy agency will spell out all the fees and surcharges involved with your vacation booking. You should get all the fees in writing. Be wary of too good to be true low rates for a vacation. This could be a lure to get your business and then you have the extra fees presented to you after it is too late.
A reputable agency will go above and beyond to satisfy your needs for your vacation. If needed, a reputable agent will make sure handicap access or other disability accommodations are available, to make sure the trip is enjoyable. A disreputable agency is only interested in collecting your money.
Another factor to consider is if the agent provides some sort of travel tips and guidelines to make your trip enjoyable, especially if you are planning to visit an international destination. Before traveling to a foreign country one should be prepared to deal with that country’s culture and have some sort of understanding on the do’s and don’t s to not only to make the trip more enjoyable but to also as a safety factor . A good agent will alert the traveler to dangers as far as weather or crime to prevent injury or worse.
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5 Key How To Start a Travel Agency Steps to Instantly Increase Sales
Congratulations on recently starting a travel business. But do not rest now. Your work is not done yet. You need to unleash key tactics to enable relentless, sustained business growth to occur. Let’s look at the quickest, fastest and easiest strategies to build sales right now for a travel agency starting off.
1. Follow up every enquiry with 5 multiple professional communications.
Burn this secret into your mind. To build any business to consumer relationship you need to accept that several contacts should be considered the norm and not the exception when dealing with your prospects. Three, five or seven contacts or communications with your enquirer virtually means a booking will result with you rather than a hit or miss one contact approach.
The biggest mistake most new travel businesses make is to NOT consistently follow up every enquiry. The best way to enable this to happen is to have a sales system whereby every consultant professionally and without fear is trained to simply have 3 or 5 or 7 communications after someone enquiries. I recommend you start with producing a simple 5 step sales system. Here is how you go about it.
An example would be where a quotation has been given to a prospect (Step 1). Of course you have attempted to close the sale professionally but we know it will be normal for many prospects not to book with you immediately. This is especially so for more detailed travel itineraries.
Step 2: A courtesy call to see what the person feels about the information supplied.
Step 3: Email extra tip or information quickly through about the prospect’s trip.
Step 4: Send a pre-prepared letter to thank them for enquiring and to offer them an incentive to come back in.
Step 5: Follow up call again to see how they are getting on with their plans and to offer to assist them further. Because rapport has been established now is a good time (if it has not occurred in earlier steps) to ask for the booking again and a final commitment.
These steps are interchangeable and the key is they happen in different mediums via email, direct mail and phone calls. Now consider if you are doing this versus another competing travel agency who does not follow up at all or spasmodically at best (which is the norm in the travel industry). So who will win the majority of customers most of the time?
So why do so many of us in the travel industry have no logical sales process for following up or staying in touch? Why do we make it such a hit and miss affair? Imagine the power of following up every single quotation and enquiry 100% of the time.
How to start a travel agency secret number one is easy really. It just takes some thought to how to implement this simple system into your travel business.
If I could convince you of the mightiest of strategies, the one that takes the pick as the first tactic I would introduce to any travel business, it would be following up every quote within 3 business days and to keep in touch with your prospects until they buy.
If you do this one simple strategy, train your team and have a written down, easy to implement system, your conversion rate of enquiry to booking will increase and sometimes by dramatic margins! Test it in your business and see for yourself.