The Return of Travel Agent
As most of us have started relying on various travel portals for planning our trips, and with a travel portal launching every other day, travellers are getting confused with the increase in the complexity and abundance of the travel options.
All of us click our mouse several times, surfing the vast choices offered by online travel booking Web sites before we give up in frustration for not being able to make the right choice.
Also, in peak season periods, (viz. during diwali, summer vacations, new year period) people realize that the hotel bookings which they have booked through online portals doesn’t get confirmed and they end up in some other hotels which they have not planned for their vacations.
A recent CNN report says that people are going back the travel agent, an industry that many industry experts once thought to be passe with the advent of online booking.
Why you should have a Personal Travel Agent?
While booking flights/hotels online, you have no one to guide you what is good for you and what is not and you have to make all the research by yourself. No doubt, these portals have 24 hr. customer care service, but when one talk to these customer care representatives, one can realize they are not travel experts, who can guide you for a proper itinerary. They are not better than an average call centre employee who can take your complaint/service request and will provide you with only that much information which is already on the portal.
A travel agent on the other hand establishes a relationship with his clients over phone or in person and they guide you with the various options they have researched themselves. A travel agent is a professional who can usually work better than computer do.
How to find your Personal Travel Agent
Is the travel agent open to suggestions from you, the customer?
An online travel portal makes an itinerary by repackaging all the data each according to their own assumptions about travel purchasing, but a travel agent normally, to deserve your loyalty and money, check into all the options suggested by you.
Does your agent provide 24 hr. support when you are travelling?
For example, If something goes wrong in the hotel you are staying, or you want your flight to be postponed, will he pick your call at 3 am and still serve you with a smile?
Is your agent comfortable working entirely by email and phone?
The point is that you need a travel agent with whom you will not have to sit while he's researching your trip, He should be able to do all of this, with response times measured in minutes or hours and not days.
Is your travel agent charging genuine fees for his service?
Since Indian rail does not offer commissions of any kind, travel agents have had to charge travelers directly for rail bookings. Most hotels, airlines, car rental companies and other travel service providers still pay commissions to travel agents for completed bookings and travel agents also give you the discounts from their own margins in order to retain a client
