Question for all of you travel agents out there.

[LisaMc]

I absolutely love planning each of our vacations and would love to try doing it for a living, but I am not sure where to even get started. I do not work in the travel industry currently. Any advice?? Thanks in advance!!

 

[nuke]

I don't want to be negative, but it is not a good industry to get into right now.
In my area, agents were in demand before 9/11, now they are out of jobs and finding it hard to find a new one.

Good Luck no matter what you decide to do.

 

[Dodie]

Not only that, but, with so many people planning their own trips and booking their own flights and such via online resources, travel agents are even LESS in demand - even for people who are traveling.

I have a friend who's a TA who's out of work right now.

 

[scarlett873]

it's great if you can find a job, but right now, the travel industry is hurting really bad. i was an agent up until oct 2001. i loved my job and would do it again if i had the chance, but it's very hard to find a job right now...there are too many agents out of work and going after the same positions...

and even though the internet booking engines are doing well, there are still tons of people who prefer to deal with someone face to face. i had numerous clients who would do the research online and then come to me to book it for them. i know i'm very apprehensive about booking something online. very afraid something will go wrong...i had several clients come in to my office and begging for help because of something they screwed up while booking their airline tickets online by themselves and there was nothing that i could do for them.

here's hoping the travel industry picks back up again!!

 

[Grog]

Another thing that will probably hurt the business..... I decided to do the face to face thing a few weeks ago when I had to book a flight. I was surprised when I had to pay a $30 fee on top of the tax, airport fees, etc. This is due to the fact that a lot of airlines are not giving commissions to TAs anymore for booking flights. Since I'm usually on a budget, I guess I will be searching online from now on. I hate to see anyone out of work, but $30 is $30. it would be nice if they could find another way around the "no commission" problem as I am one that prefers to talk to a living person when I make my travel arrangements.