A thread was posted today on fodors.com asking, "How do you book your trips? TA or yourself." Although the response was predictable (the Fodors community has a bias against using a travel consultant), I read anyway to get a sense of how the discussion would develop.
The poster — Eliza — is going to Paris next May with two friends. She normally plans her own travel, but one of her friends wanted to use a travel agent. They turned to the brick-and-mortar travel agency in their town, Liberty Travel (a large agency with 160 stores that largely sells its own package deals). Eliza described Liberty Travel as being "as flexible as a piece of granite." What did others think?
Elainee wrote, "IMO most travel agents book 'set trips.' It is not worth their time ... to do individual trips.... Go on Expedia, or another web booker and based on your research, book for yourself."
Note to Elainee: Expedia is a travel agency but one you interact with only via a booking engine. They earn a commission when you book through them (or mark up a pre-paid NET rate), but they offer no hand-holding, and you can't talk with them for advice about the best place to stay.
Trav_Eller said, "I use them for one purpose - to help me gather the information I need to plan my own travel. I pick their brains, read their brochures, marvel at the prices others are prepared to pay, then do it myself."
Note to Trav_Eller: At least you're honest about your intentions. You're someone whom a travel professional would call a "shopper" — taking up gobs of time, then walking away without buying anything. If a travel consultant ever asks you for a "plan to go fee" before getting too deeply into a conversation with you, now you know the reason why!
Nytraveler offered this advice: "If you want a very upscale trip and guidance from an expert, I would go to the web site of Travel & Leisure or Conde Nast Traveler and get the name of an expert TA. They will charge a fortune - but will get you special deals at very upscale places and may be worth the money. In the olden days, I had a great travel agent at the main AmEx office in Manhattan. She had traveled extensively in Europe, provided wonderful advice for our independent trips, ... but this was 20 years ago. Those TAs no longer exist."
Note to nytraveler: I agree with a lot of what you say - and disagree with a lot as well. Expert travel consultants do still exist, and T&L and Conde Nast are a great resource for finding them. Here's another. My agency, Brownell Travel, is an incredible community of outstanding travel advisors. Most of them will charge a trip planning fee to craft a totally customized itinerary for you. Why? Because planning travel well is time-intensive, the time of a professional who is much in demand is worth something, and the days when their services could be freely given because of generous airline commissions are long gone.
Your most interesting sentence is this: "They will charge a fortune - but will get you special deals at very upscale places." This is what I do every day. I get my clients special deals at very upscale places. Room upgrades. Free breakfasts. Additional amenities that make your stay an even better value. But charge a fortune? Hardly! I have never charged a booking fee.
The thread offers a revealing discussion about perceptions and realities of working with a travel consultant. Perhaps my readers will want to log into fodors and share their own experiences (but please respect the non-commercial nature of the Fodors forum).
travel consultant (search here on Google)
.
No comments:
Post a Comment