Like many others with an internet connection and a computer, I can plan a total holiday overseas holiday with flights, accom, finding a driver on FB etc etc without having to move from my couch (except to get my cc out of my purse).
Yet travel-agents still seem to be around: we have one in the small town where I live!
I wonder though how many years before they are an anachronism, something that kids might read about in future generations and consider a quaint oddity of times long gone.
Business travel, plus dealing with complicated travel arrangements. When we were running World Fantasy Con, we needed to make travel arrangements for our guests, who were coming from all over the US and the World (Reserving a trip from Paraguay to Albany NY, for instance). They also were up on regulations and passport and Visa requirements.
In addition, they have access to special packages that you can’t get online. You can just have them do all the work- and you usually don’t have to pay them (directly).
The last time my family used a travel agent, my step daughter was going to a conference in LaPaz, Bolivia, and when she stepped off the plane, she was told she was in LaPaz,
Mexico.
Howver, there are things an agent would know how to do, that would be nearly impossible online. Like buying a RT ticket somewhere, with an open date for return.
I don’t for personal travel, but I do when I’m organizing study abroad for groups of students. Just for the flights – housing, ground transportation, and excursions are very much do-it-myself territory – but I’d imagine that if I were at a larger, richer school, I might very well be happy to hand the whole thing over to a travel agent specializing in student trips and not have to THINK about so much goddamn STUFF.
(We leave for Ireland in a month and five days. I trust all the pieces will have come together by then.)
I work for a company large enough that we’ve got an agency that we’re required to book our travel through, and we’re a large enough account that we have a number to just call and they set it up. That said, we can also do it directly through the web portal, and literally every major trip I’ve been on, I was able to do better than the agent on travel timing, total price, or both. They’re not very good, and I have to think they’re probably obsolete pretty soon - their own software is smarter than them already, it’s just a matter of making it ‘smart’ enough so your average 50yo executive doesn’t have to think about it more than he does his existing phone call.
On the other hand, my wife’s parents moved back to Taiwan once all of the kids were in college, and they have an agent that they all used when they were in college to coordinate flights home. When my wife and I went to TW shortly after we were married, I did all of my usual research and thought I had the right deal… and the agent was able to beat it by a few hundred bucks a ticket pretty easily. On another vacation, I had done all of the research and we ran the trip by the agent (just destinations and general date ranges), and she came up with that exact itinerary and price as the best option, in far less time than it had taken me to get there. She’s good, adds value, and will probably never be obsolete.
Five years ago I’d have told you that agents were already obsolete, but it turns out there’s always a place for a particularly competent professional.
There are some local people (I think they are stay-at-home-moms) that have their own business as Walt Disney World travel agents. My friend recently booked a trip through her, for 5 adults and 3 kids. With all the ins-and-outs and tips and tricks there are to WDW, I don’t see this sort of specialized travel agent going away any time soon.
We used a travel agent in Thailand for air tickets. They got them for us much cheaper than we could have found them online with the airline or anyone else.
I’ve not used a travel agent for personal use for 15 years. That includes multi-base skiing trips and far eastern multi-city breaks. There was a point aorund 15 years ago when the utility of internet surpassed the ability of the travel agents, at which point we switched and never went back.
Part of it is that we quite enjoy the planning and logistics which I appreciate is not everyone’s cup of tea. Another part of it is that we can do it much more cheaply ourselves.
We’ve recently booked an 8 day trip to Italy in October. We land in Pisa and travel by train to Venice. Flights for 4 people, train travel between cities, apartment accommodation in each city. Booking it ourselves we got it all, custom built, for £1088 in total. Not a chance in hell that a travel agent could do it better or cheaper.
Travel Agents are used for business and for special deals which are not available online. I do find it cute when people say that “oh we can do it better than the agent online” “or that we infact did”. Because no you don’t and cannot.Last year I got an agent to get me get me a round trip to the US in Business plus which cost as much as a basic economy. No way I would have found that out online.
As this article points out, many of the Travel sites useTravel Agents or are Travel Agents themselves.
I would take that bet. :). Most of the best deals don’t get on the 'Net.
Well you don’t have to believe me. I went through a period where we were actively putting our trips together in parallel with travel agents whilst doing our own research and deals directly with hotels, airlines and other suppliers.
The travel agents were, without exception, less flexible and much more expensive so it seems like I can and have done it cheaper. Which is only to be expected. A travel agent is a middle-man and they require their cut.
I think you’d lose that bet. Neither the flights nor the trains are available for any better prices through travel agents so that only leaves the apartments. We hand picked those to be in exactly the right place with the right facilities and dealt with them directly through the owners.
What “deals” would a travel agent have access to that I don’t?
I use a travel agent for work travel. Occasionally it’s cheaper; often it’s not. But usually not much difference. Most of advantage comes from special arrangements with hotels and one rental car company.
ETA this is all domestic. International flight pricing seems to be a bit sneakier, whereas domestic is more likely just to be the sum of the parts, plus fees.
I don’t know the full details of your trip, but tell me what was the flight like? Did you have a meal? Seat space? Arriving and departure times? Check in baggage was additional or part of the ticket? Did you go to the main airport or one that was vaguely somewhere in the same country? IME using a travel agent meant that for a little extra (literally 10 quid at times) I could get a flight at a good time, to a major airport, with space and an in-flight meal, which according to the travel website I would have to pay a whole lot more for. Where is the hotel in relation to the sights of the place you are going to.
I am no luddite, I was an early and eager user of Expedia and still do use travel websites regularly, but to say that you will necessarily get a better deal from that website than a travel agent is pushing.
This is exactly my experience. The younger group will find cheaper/better flights on line and send them to the travel agency, normally with a note saying “I didn’t see this one in your list of options…”
The only time travel agents are useful is when we have a Service technician in the middle of the Amazon and they only have enough of a connection to say “HALP, TIME TO COME HOME.”
Don’t want a meal, don’t need checked baggage, times are perfectly fine as they get us in late evening to Pisa and out of Venice early afternoon, A seat is a seat so I don’t care for a 2 hour flight. They do go to the exact cities that we need. One flight in to Pisa, then back out of Venice. Two different airlines and the cost in total was £310 for all 4 passengers return.
I can’t guarantee that I’m right on that, just that my previous experiences have left me unimpressed with travel agents and I haven’t been back. I may be missing a trick, that is entirely possible.
As it happens we are just starting to plan a possible trip next Easter to Hong Kong and that may be a perfect test case to see if they have upped their game in the intervening years.
Do you have a particular favourite agent that you’d recommend? I can always run our requirements past them and see if they can rustle-up a good deal. I do put a bit of pride in our ability to get good deals on our own but not so much that I’d turn down the opportunity to get a better one.
One thing I’ve noticed is that Australia has absurdly more brick and mortar travel agents than the US. It’s something I always thought of as a long dying industry so to land in a country where it’s still a thriving business like it was 1990 is kind of weird.
Three years ago, my mom and I flew from DC to London to catch a cruise ship that returned us to NYC. We worked thru a travel agent who was a friend of Mom’s. When we arrived at the cruise terminal, they had no record of our reservation. Lucky for me, I had a pile of emails and it all got straightened out, but I’ve never had problems when I did all my arrangements myself. In fact, by searching on my own, I found us a cheaper hotel and cheaper airfare than the agent suggested.
For subsequent trips with her friends, my mom made her own arrangements. We’re done with travel agents.
I worked for a company for ten years that required us to use their travel agents. It came in very handy a couple times. On one occasion, I was caught in Denver for three days because of a snowstorm. Fortunately, I had rented a 4WD. The agency was able to find me a room for the night, but it took them a couple hours. I then had to move to another hotel for the next nights. They also arranged all the re-booking through the airline. I could easily imagine having to spend hours taking care of all this on my own. As it was, I just went where they told me at the times they told me.
But this was before smartphones made internet access ubiquitous for stranded travelers like me.
To the best of my recollection, they never sent me to Nashville, NC, when I needed to go to Nashville, TN 
I like doing all-inclusive vacations in the Caribbean. Travel Agents always seem to have access to better deals than I can find online. But other than that, I never bother with them at all.