Being your own travel agent has certainly become much easier with the advent of the Internet and the variety of booking engines and endless resources now available online. While booking your own airfare, make hotel reservations or arrange for a car rental is easy today, professional travel agents still routinely have an access to resources that public does not. Some of the travel magazines in recent years had acknowledged the issue of public being able to arrange much of their own travel today, using a professional travel planner still does make sense especially when trying to book a demanding trip in terms of logistics and where number of options how best to carry it out are available. While air carriers no longer offer commissions to agents on published fares, a reality that has forced number of travel agencies out of the business, agencies depend on revenue generated from sales of a variety of travel products in general and certainly can’t make a living from providing free information. Any traveler can certainly find of use the expert advise on destinations and logistics he may get from a certified travel consultants and other professional destination specialists but needs to realize there is a limit to it.
It seems that while much of the public realizes the agent’s expertise and that’s why they contact the agencies for help to begin with, many travelers abuse what they seem to understand as being the system, namely that travel agencies are here to disseminate free information. One can expect to get answers as to a package tour that is advertised but asking for a custom designed tour, not price for a package of some kind, requires a step by step planning process on which a travel consultant needs to spend a considerable amount of time. It certainly is very easy to type up a request asking for costs and detailed travel logistics for your next trip and email the same request to a number of agencies and then sit back waiting for the offers to come, often a time looking for the lowest bidder. Although some agents still seem to provide much of free information it sure makes for an annoying experience for an agent when those that send the request upon getting all the answers they wanted never bother to reply and say at least thank you.
Fact is many agencies used to routinely provide lots of free information in the past, but things have changed a bit today and many will charge $100 to $200 planning fee upfront, which with booking is fully deductible from client’s final tour costs. When confronted with said fees, some travelers, however, seem to be disgruntled whereas should realize that asking for too many travel details without promise of a booking is frankly like coming to a car mechanic and asking him to tell you what’s wrong with your car – in the old days he would, today he will charge you to find out. If this fee deters you from working with a professional travel planner, his or her office is not your company, but please do understand that to prepare for you any realistic tailor made itinerary in all details and to prepare a realistic quote to go with it, the agents need to work with hotels where you wish to travel, transportation suppliers, guides and other travel suppliers and pull it altogether into a coherent product to present to you. It takes involvement of many people; they don’t just look it up in a brochure of sorts and give you all the answers.
Keeping this in mind can be helpful in terms of what you think you can or can’t hope to get when working with a professional travel consultant.