"Why Travel Agents?" is an open letter to the media written several years ago by Joel M. Abels (1926-2007). Mr. Abels was editor and publisher of Travel Trade Publications and CEO of Travel Trade Productions in NYC. Mr. Abels was a man I wish I had met. It seems he did the travel industry a great service and was a widely respected individual. You can read more about his accomplishments by clicking on the link at the end of this post. For now, I would like to share with you his letter "Why Travel Agents".
Taking the inevitable ravel out of travel, and making it easier for both pleasure travelers and business travelers to make their travel arrangements, is something which retail travel agents have been doing for them for the last 75 years.
This fact was driven home to virtually everyone traveling in the immediate aftermath of “9/11”, when flight schedules were disrupted nationwide and worldwide, and airline passengers scrambled to return home to nervous loved ones.
The overwhelming majority of these passengers, those who had booked their air travel arrangements through their local travel agent, were able to call their travel agent who rebooked their flights for them, almost immediately, by telephone. Meanwhile, those unfortunate travelers who had made the mistake of booking their own flights, either directly through the airlines or via one of the new Internet ticket selling “monsters”, in most cases found themselves stranded, waiting on long airport lines attempting to rebook their flights — often unsuccessfully or only after extensive delays.
Most of today’s American travelers aren’t even familiar with the post-World War II “do-it-yourself” syndrome, and have been raised to believe that professionals do it far better than “do-it-yourselfers”. This is why, until recently, some 90% of all those who flew made their travel arrangements through a local retail travel agency. At least 75% of today’s air travelers still do, despite the inroads of highly publicized Internet giants such as Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and other so-called “10,000-Pound Marketing Gorillas”.
When it comes to cruises and tours, over 90% of today’s cruise and tour passengers continue to rely on their local travel agent to help them select either the right ship or the right tour, and at the right price, which is best suited to their personal tastes, needs and pocketbooks. The overwhelming majority of pleasure travelers have learned that local travel agents really care, and go to great lengths to get them the best deal on the best travel products and services which suit them best.
Virtually every cruise line and tour operator is dependent on travel agents to sell its wares and to keep their customers happy by correctly matching clients to the right cruise or tour package.
But, if travel agents are really so indispensable, and if leisure and business travelers find their services so time-saving and, in most cases, so cost-saving, why the rush to write them off? Why is the obituary for the travel agent industry being written about and talked about with increasing frequency in local and national media?
The simplistic reason being advanced, one which is being encouraged by the airline industry in its effort to eliminate payment of commissions to travel agents, is that travel agents are no longer needed in today’s “Age of Technology”.
Of course, they are not needed if you have the time and patience to spend 30 minutes to an hour on the Internet making your own airline ticket arrangements and feel confident that an impersonal Internet provider will get you the best ticket at the best price.
And, one other thing — ticket yourself if you are confident that you won’t be the one in approximately every three airline ticket buyers who finds it necessary to reticket for any of a myriad of reasons. Because, if you are one of the latter, the odds are that you will never want to be a ticket-yourselfer again. Either the additional cost or the added time and aggravation will convince you of that.
Mainly overlooked in all of the discussions about the future role of the retail travel agent is the inescapable fact that travel agents are truly the “Ultimate Search Engines”. Today’s new breed of travel agents, and there are over 250,000 accredited travel agent sellers nationwide, use all of the tools of the Internet and of modern technology to provide their clients with fast, accurate, low cost, knowledgeable service.
Professional travel agents have the ability to provide present and future customers with far better information, and far superior service, than any dot-com mega monster is capable of coming up with. In brief, why should any potential travelers waste hours searching the net for either new travel ideas, travel bargains or travel values when, for a modest airline ticket service fee, his or her local retail travel agent is a far better search engine for this task than either Google, Yahoo!, Lycos or any of the others out there.
For as long as travel agents can continue to do it better, and get you the best deal, neither the airlines nor the mega Internet monsters will write their obituary for them. Because, as the American Society of Travel Agents proclaims, “Without a Travel Agent You’re on Your Own”.
To read more about Joel M. Abels and his wife, Lenore please follow this link:
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