Even though the Internet has provided the utmost ease for travel bookings, hotel reservations, and buying air tickets, it doesn’t offer that ultimate experience that you get from a travel agent. These days, many people consider ‘vacation planning’ a DIY thing as numerous websites allow them to reserve a hotel, book a flight, buy travel insurance, and explore local sightseeing easily by browsing online. However, if you need to save planning time, avoid blunders, and reap the best vacation experience, it is always better to have a travel agent by your side.
If you are thinking about how a travel agent can help you make the most of your trip, you may want to go through the reasons provided below.
Benefits of Using a Travel Agent
1. Their Experience Counts
As travel agents know the market well and always have up-to-date information with them, if you explain to them what exactly you want to experience in your trip, they will surely be able to cater to you with a better roadmap to it than what you find on online.
2. Prompt Support
In case anything during your trip goes wrong, regardless of the fault, a good travel agent will go to any extent to bring your vacation back on track and ensure your experience with them or with the trip doesn’t leave a bad taste later.
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3. Their Connections
Travel agents who hold years of experience in the industry have a great bonding with the hotels, airlines, and restaurants they deal with. These connections allow them to leverage certain advantages an average consumer is not aware of or able to get online. Sometimes, tour operators can help you get room upgrades, better seats for a flight, or extra facilities at hotels at no extra cost.
4. Ease of Planning
Searching online for flights, hotels, local guides, etc., is not a task that you can get done with just a couple of swipes or clicks. You need to spend a significant amount of time to get the right deal. Having immense experience in providing business travel management services, SATA Travels knows the value of your time and the difference between travel inspiration and actual travel desires. Hence, they ensure the vacation that you want and not the one that you saw in an advertisement online. A destination shown in an online ad may appear worth visiting, but it might not be ideal for you. In such cases, travel agents can help you ascertain what exactly you wish to get out of your travel.
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5. Build a Relationship
When you have developed a relationship with your travel agent by hiring their services a couple of times, they provide you with the right suggestions without even discussing a lot about your next trip. A simple phone call or email is what may only be needed to get sorted for your next business travel.
6. Get Exciting Discounts and Offers
Based on their relationships with partners, travel agents can generally help you save money (time and effort), get a discount, or at least get the same price that you find on the internet. Sometimes, tour operators include chargeable services for free on your trips. For example, a travel agent will include transfers from airport to hotel and vice versa at no extra cost. Such services or offers are generally provided on a chargeable basis on the internet.
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7. Special Treatment
SATA Travel says – “Our business travel management experts always try to build relationships with their customers by providing special treatment in one or the other way”. There are numerous value-adds that customers generally are not aware of, but are provided by a travel agent. If you ever come across a couple in the cabin next to you being served champagne for the same package that you bought online, it is most likely that they hired the services of a travel agent.
8. Better Suggestions for Destinations
As Travel agents have inside information about the places and the best time to visit them, they will ensure that you don’t waste your valuable time exploring a location (you saw online) not worth visiting the time of the year you visit that city or country.
9. Special Access
Not all tours and experiences can be booked online. Some places, services, or experiences are provided by travel agents exclusively to their customers, such as private jets, treks, and exotic tours. If the picture of the scenic beach you saw on Instagram entices you to visit it, but you are not able to get it booked online, it is most likely that it might be an exclusive service being provided by travel agents for its guests.
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10. Get Knowledge
Travel agents are also interesting and knowledgeable people to converse with. They usually have experience of people and places more than you can imagine. The business travel management department of SATA Travel says – “We generally hire people in our team who are passionate about travelling and its counterparts. This allows our customers to take advantage of our experts’ services and experiences, and make their vacation not only memorable but also knowledgeable”.
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How Role of Travel Agents Have Changed over the Past Years?
Since the breakthroughs in the world of technology and high-speed internet, the involvement of travel agents has been minimized as travellers are now enjoying the benefits of booking their flights and hotels online.
The travel agencies have still not lost all their luster as they have also brought their game to the internet platform to reach customers all over the world. Not only have they shifted online from their brick and mortar offices, but they are also continuously learning and evolving to survive and expand their business by tapping the new doors of opportunities that the internet world has opened for them.
While online services like Bookings.com and Agoda have helped travel both leisure and corporate travel management agencies of all levels to get associated with them, Airbnb has provided earning sources for individuals by renting out their property to travellers from all across the globe.
Current Travel Regulations
As for the past one and a half years the world is battling against the century’s biggest pandemic Covid-19, every country across the globe has posed travel restrictions according to the severity of the situation in their respective nation. Some countries have completely shut their international flights temporarily for those coming or going to pandemic-stricken countries, while other nations have made it mandatory for passengers to bring a negative Covid-19 report and follow a minimum of 14 days institutional or home quarantine.
As the current travel regulations are different for each country, it is recommended to better consult with a travel agency before planning a visit to any of the cities or country.
Planning a leisure trip or looking for corporate travel management services? You can reach SATA Travels for reliable assistance. SATA Travels is a leading business travel management agency known for offering all travel-related services, be it business or leisure.
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