TRAVEL AND TOUR

MANAGEMENT1
 TRAVEL AGENCIES
TRAVEL AGENCIES
- Businesses that help the public with
their travel plans and needs
- Mostly operate offices that consumers
can visit or call
- Some are “virtual agencies” that sell
through internet web sites
- Can target their sales to leisure or
business travelers, or to both.
 TRAVEL AGENCIES
TRAVEL AGENTS
- Also called travel advisor, travel
consultant, travel counselor or travel
planner
- A professional who analyzes,
recommends, arranges, and sell one or
more components of a person’s trip
 TRAVEL AGENCIES
TRAVEL AGENTS

- 35-40% of consumers regularly use

travel agents to help plan or book their
trips.
- 80% of all travel agents are women
 REASONS WHY IT’S A GOOD
IDEA TO BOOK THROUGH A
TRAVEL AGENT
1. A Travel Agent is more skilled at
finding the best travel solution

 The average person spends only a

handful of hours each year planning
and booking travel. Travel Agents do
this sort of things all day, every week,
all year. They’re professionals who
know what they’re doing.
 REASONS WHY IT’S A GOOD
IDEA TO BOOK THROUGH A
TRAVEL AGENT
2. A Travel Agent can find the best deal

Agents are better at spotting genuine

values.
Ex.: hotels in Singapore
The price maybe a bargain, but what a
traveler gets for it is a poor value
compared to its competitors.
 REASONS WHY IT’S A GOOD
IDEA TO BOOK THROUGH A
TRAVEL AGENT
3. A Travel Agent saves time and trouble

 Most of us today lead highly busy lives,

so, you can let a pro take over for you-
planning and booking travel
 REASONS WHY IT’S A GOOD
IDEA TO BOOK THROUGH A
TRAVEL AGENT
4. A Travel Agent is accountable

 If something goes wrong with a trip you

bought, the travel agency will do all it
can to solve the problem
 REASONS WHY IT’S A GOOD
IDEA TO BOOK THROUGH A
TRAVEL AGENT
5. A Travel Agent knows suppliers better

Travel Agents know suppliers well and

that such knowledge is reflected in the
high trust the public places in their
recommendations of subtly complex,
experience-like products such as tours,
cruises and complicated itineraries.
 REASONS WHY IT’S A GOOD
IDEA TO BOOK THROUGH A
TRAVEL AGENT
5. A Travel Agent knows suppliers better

In fact, more than 90% of people on

tours/cruises bought their vacations
through travel agents
 REASONS WHY IT’S A GOOD
IDEA TO BOOK THROUGH A
TRAVEL AGENT
6. A Travel Agent knows destinations
better

 Travel Agents almost always have a

much better sense of geography than
their clients do.
 REASONS WHY IT’S A GOOD
IDEA TO BOOK THROUGH A
TRAVEL AGENT
7. A Travel Agent is largely impartial

Travel Agencies usually have preferred

relationships with multiple suppliers in
each sector.
Suppliers are presumably chosen for an
agency’s portfolio of preferred products
because they have demonstrated a high
degree of reliability, value, service, and
overall excellence.
KINDS OF TRAVEL AGENCIES
1. CONVENTIONAL, FULL-SERVICE
AGENCIES

 These agencies sell it all: air, lodging,

car rentals, rail travel, cruises, tours
and most other forms of travel
packages.
 Customers can book travel and
receive advice by phone, via e-mail, or
by visiting the agency in person
KINDS OF TRAVEL AGENCIES
1. CONVENTIONAL, FULL-SERVICE
AGENCIES

 Tend to sell mostly to people in their

own geographic community. Their
neighborhood presence often makes
them a comfortable choice for locals.
 SUBDIVISIONS OF A FULL-
SERVICE AGENCY
1.a. They may be wholly owned by a large
agency chain, or by a smaller regional or
local chain.
 Mega-Agency- large chains with thousand
or more locations
Ex.: American Express, Carlson Wagonlit
 Regional Chains- with several hundred
locations
 Local Chains- with half-dozen or more
locations
1B. Travel Agencies may be
FRANCHISES that are owned by
individuals or families but are
affiliated with a large brand, to whom
the owners pay an annual franchise
fee and/or percentage of profits.
 Example: Uniglobe- franchise
operations
1C. Travel Agencies may be affiliated
with consortium
CONSORTIUM- a group of agencies
that works together to obtain and
develop marketing tools, accounting
systems, training programs, and
higher commissions from selected,
preferred suppliers.
Ex.: Ensemble Travel
My Travel
Vacation. Com
Signature travel Network
1D. Travel Agencies may simply be
INDEPENDENT, with no affiliations

 Often called “mom and pop”

agencies
2. ONLINE AGENCIES
These agencies operate almost
exclusively through their web sites.
A great marketing strength is that
online agencies are not bound by
geography. They sell to people
anywhere in the world.
Ex.: Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz

“ BRICK-AND-CLICK” AGENCIES
- Agencies that sell conventionally
as well as on the web
3. SPECIALIZED AGENCIES

- An agency may be focused on its

specialty that it doesn’t need to be a
full-service business
- Ex.: A cruise-only Agency
4. HOME-BASED AGENCIES
- An agency’s full-time employee may find
that its easier to work from a home office
than at the agency’s physical location
 Requires less office space and fewer
resources
 Peer interaction is lost and plenty of self-
discipline is required.
 Many skilled agents have relocated their
workspaces to their homes and as home
offices in all fields.
4. HOME-BASED AGENCIES
- An agency may have a part-time
seller of travel who prefers to work
out of his home.
Outside Agents may have a full-time
job in another field and sell travel to
their circle of friends, relatives, and
co-workers.
HOST AGENCY- The agency with
which the outside agent is affiliated
 CORPORATE TRAVEL
MANAGEMENT
CORPORATE TRAVEL MANAGER

- A person employed by a company to

arrange travel for its employees.

- Paid better than travel agents

because of additional responsibilities
 ROLES OF A CORPORATE TRAVEL
MANAGER
- Arrange travel for the employees
- Set corporate travel policy (Ex.: must book
in advance)
- Plan meetings, conferences, and
convention programs
- Negotiate with suppliers
- Manage travel budgets
- Arrange personnel relocation and housing
- Communicate with management in other
departments
 TRAVEL AGENT: SALES- OR
SERVICE PERSON?
Business Agents- PRIMARILY service
providers
Leisure Agents- PRIMARILY sales people

 Of course, A Leisure Agents must also

provide great service, and Corporate
Agents sometimes practice certain sales
strategies.
 TRAVEL AGENT: SALES- OR
SERVICE PERSON?
CORPORATE AGENTS LEISURE AGENTS
Respond to request Inform and suggest
Work almost exclusively Are more likely to meet with
by phone and email clients in-person
Often communicate through Almost always deal directly with
the traveler’s assistant, not the traveler
the traveler
Usually hear about how a Hear about how a trip went if
trip went something went wrong
Just about every caller books travel Often deal with “phone
shoppers,”
so a majority of callers don’t
book
 STEPS THAT A GOOD TRAVEL
AGENT TAKE
1. They provide a warm and cheery
greeting.
2. They ask questions to determine the
client’s needs. This process is usually
called qualifying.
3. They do research, if necessary, to find
the right products and services for the
client.
4. They make recommendations that meet
the client’s needs.
5. They overcome objections that the client
might have to the recommendations.
6. They enhance the sale by recommending
additional products or services (cross-
selling) or perhaps better options than the
client had in mind (upselling)
7. They close the sale by getting agreement
and payment from the client.
8. They follow-up to make sure the trip went
well.
TRAVEL AND THE INTERNET
1. WEB SITES
 World Wide Web
• A system within the internet that
organizes information, both text and
visuals, into pages that can easily be
retrieved and displayed

 Internet
• A global system of computer networks
that enables people to access and
communicate with any other computer
connected to it.
 Types of Sites
1. Information Sites
• These provide you with details on
places, products and data, almost
always with links to other relevant
sites

2. Opinion Sites
• Self-proclaimed experts giving views
on everything about destinations
and products
3. Supplier Booking Sites
• Suppliers recognize that the NET
provides a cost-efficient, easily
updated way to distribute their
products

4. Travel Agency Sites

• Most agencies allow bookings both
online and through phone or in a
traditional walk-in office
5. Auction Sites
• These companies permit consumers
to bid on travel
• Enter a price you’re willing to pay for
a certain generic travel product and
the site then tells you if your bid has
been accepted and with which
supplier.
• Ex: www.priceline.com
 Strengths of Web-based technology
1. It gives access to vast storehouses
of knowledge
 You can find out almost anything on
the net, with plenty about travel-
related issues
2. Its convenient

 You can research and buy from your

home or office, 24/7,
 No need to wait, hold or go to the
office
3. There’s no sales pressure

 You rarely feel that someone is

manipulating you into buying

 The site is infinitely patient

4. Its interactive

 The give and take between

the consumer and the site is
quick, flexible and accurate
5. Its visual

 It can provide virtual tours of hotels,

live broadcast from cruise ships, and
all sorts of other visuals- the kind
that motivate consumers to buy
6. It can be entertaining

 Websites lend themselves to

creative, flashy, and fun buying
environments-useful when selling
leisure travel
7. It communicates regularly

 If you agree to be included on a

supplier’s email list, you’ll receive
special announcements, newsletter,
and alerts on special offers
8. It can customize

 If you volunteer information about

yourself to a company’s database, it
can create a profile that will permit
notifications to you of product offers
tailored to your taste.
 Weaknesses of Web-Based
Technology

1. It can’t solve complex trips very well

 Its hard to assemble a multi-

component trip on the internet
TRAVEL AND THE INTERNET
2. Its potentially time-consuming

 It can overload you with so many choices

and so much data that you don’t know
where to begin
 Buying travel via an inefficiently designed
booking engine may take longer than a
phone call to a supplier or a travel agent
3. Privacy and Security are still an
issue

 Many people continue to feel

uncomfortable with giving personal
information and/or a credit card
number to a “faceless”, impersonal
system
4. Information is often dated.

 From a supplier point of view, one of

the internet’s strengths is that
information can be easily updated.
This makes it superior to printed
brochures. BUT IN REALITY, many
suppliers fail to keep their sites
current
5. It deals poorly with after-purchase
problems

 If something goes wrong, there’s

often no one to call- or at least its
difficult to find information on how to
get a live person for help
6. It transacts superbly, but counsels
poorly

Awkward when asking and

processing open-ended questions,
the kind that good travel agents
handle quite well.
 CROSSING BORDERS
PASSPORT
- A document that a nation’s
government issues to one of its
citizens to establish that person’s
identity and nationality
- All countries require a traveler to
show a passport to enter and exit
their borders
VISA
- Stamp, imprint, or piece of paper inserted
into a traveler’s passport, placed there by
a foreign government, which indicates that
the passport’s owner may enter and pass
through the country that issued it
- It is an extra form of revenue to the issuing
country
- For security purposes, some governments
wish to do a background check in advance
of everyone who crosses their borders
- Not a guarantee to enter a country
INTERNATIONAL DRIVERS PERMIT (IDP)
- A version of your own driver’s license
translated into multiple languages

IMMIGRATION
- The process by which a government
official controls movement of people
across its borders
- Verifies a person’s citizenship through a
passport, visa or other documents
CUSTOMS
- The procedure by which government
agents inspect luggage and other
goods entering a country to check for
forbidden or restricted items.

CURRENCY
- Money that each country prints
AIRLINE RATE
- Exchange rate/conversion rate used
in the airline and travel industry

HOTEL RATE
- Exchange /conversion rate used in
the Hotel Industry
 CROSSING BORDERS
 A traveler can pay in USD
A traveler can pay in the currency of
the foreign country
A traveler can pay through credit card
A traveler through a traveler’s check.
 CROSSING BORDERS
SAFETY AND SECURITY
1. Check travel advisories
2. Be careful of theft
3. Go with brands you know
4. Health Concerns
- Vaccinations, jet lag, motion
sickness, food & drink
 SALES AND REVENUES
1. COMMISSIONS

 Travel insurance, airlines, hotels,

car rental companies, souvenir
shops
 SALES AND REVENUES
2. MARK-UP ON A NET FARE

Airlines, transportation companies,

hotels
 SALES AND REVENUES
3. SERVICE FEES

Travel documentation and assistance

 SALES AND REVENUES
4. PRODUCTION INCENTIVES AND
REBATES

 Suppliers-tour operators and airlines