Any independent travel agents that can give me advice please?

[XxLondonxX]

Hi,

I have been looking at setting up as an independent travel agent. I have looked at a few franchises but none of them are filling me with confidence.

I was hoping whether anyone on here could give me some honest advice on their experience in doing this? I love to book travel for myself so thought this might be a good side hustle to fit around the school run.

I believe that you have to have qualifications to do this and to be able to register to get travel agent discounts and commission. How else would you make any money?

I have been thinking the same. Have you managed to find any info from people who are doing this?

I have a friend who does it with her Husband and they do very well out of it.
They are very switched on business people though rather than it being a side hustle to fit around the school run.
Some of the ones advertised are MILM I believe so be cautious

I believe InteleTravel is an mlm. There's probably more.

I remember over COVID people were shilling inteletravel even through we were not allowed out !!

Unless you are an experienced travel agent then my advice is don't!

I'm sorry to disappoint you but believe me when I say that booking holidays is a VERY small part of the job and especially these days. Clients are looking for loads of practical advice and then, after hours of hard work by yourself, they will play you off against online prices. Also you need to be totally conversant with up to date legislation, visa requirements, how schedule flights work with terms and conditions and how to deal with a crisis of which you will find there are quite a few although the vast majority are not what you would consider so but clients basically expect you to be Harry Potter with any slight thing they are unhappy with. With the "Real" issues which do occur, you need to have built up contacts to help which takes years. The ash cloud in 2010 was a prime example with many clients stuck overseas but there are many other situations which you have no idea causes real difficulties for agents trying to sort things for their clients. Cancelled flights, hurricanes, clients who arrive at their accommodation and the hotelier claims they don't have a room for them etc.etc.

As you can probably gather, I have over 40 years experience and the vast majority at very senior level. I eventually took early retirement. You certainly don't want to be trying to work from home in a job for which you are not qualified. It takes 2 years working in an ABTA bonded agency to be ABTA qualified but on top of that there are lots of other qualifications that the most experienced agents hold.

Don't take the risk! If anything goes wrong or you make a mistake, you will have to cover it from your own pocket with the home working franchises who do not offer indemnity insurance.

I do it. My top tips:
You wont make money if you see it as a 'side hussle'. It isnt. If you want it to work you need to be available to your customers 24/7, especially when they are in resort.
Avoid Inteletravel, the are essentailly an mlm scheme with very little training (you absolutely cannot do this with some you tube training)
Its not as simple as putting together your own holidays, there is legislation to follow
Friends and family are the worst and will expect discounts. People will also take your hard work and try and do it themselves online without realise the pitfalls that come with that.
If you really are interested I would suggest looking at the follow agencies who have the proper training for those with no experience:
Hays
ITE
Designer travel
Travel Counsellors
Worldchoice
Travelosophers

Most of the others are absolute garbage

The only reason people today use travel agents is to have a face to face meeting and to help them with the paperwork, mostly older clients (eg my parents) and the travel agent prints all their paperwork, helps them with estas etc all of which isn’t paid for. You need to be abta bonded (that’s the whole point of using an agent). It definitely isn’t a little side hustle around your family life. I know two people Who have quit being franchised travel agents because they simply didn’t get enough work. The fact that the local travel agent is on the high street is the attraction remember.

Thanks. I was looking at Hays Travel in particular but appreciate that this is a very cut throat market and I'm no whizz when it comes to social media and online marketing, so that is a concern.

I've seen a few FB pages where people are organising groups of tours excluding flights for solo travellers. These people are not agents but call themselves 'event managers' ... I'm pretty certain they are not ATOL/ABTA bonded and dread to think what would happen if something went wrong!

I suffer from depression and anxiety, working from home would suit me and I do have many years previous experience of working in corporate travel in the Benelux and leisure travel in the UK.

Thanks for your input, most appreciated 🙂 👍

You would be self employed so would need to be able to run a business as well as booking trips etc

A friend is a travel counsellor.

I've never known anyone to work as hard as she does. She pulls all sorts of crazy hours to look after her customers. She genuinely seems to love it but she had worked for a high street travel agent for years so knew what she was getting into.

I used to know someone who does it- she specialised in the Maldives and diving holidays in SE Asia, targeting higher end, but not "private jet" territory customers - basically people who are fairly cost flexible but time poor and want their holiday totally sorted for them with minimal time from them. She still gets people who take the agenda she's proposing, ghost her and book it themselves, but her USP is that because she's so specialist she knows all the resorts and dive shops (she's a very good diver herself) and can get deals and arrangements that you couldn't get on the internet, plus her clients would rather save time than save a few hundred quid. I think to be successful you need a niche like this, or safaris or something.

Yes... I've heard all about the MLM types of travel businesses and definitely not the sort of thing I'd be remotely interested in.

Do you have any experience with Hays Travel? They have self employed roles working from home with varying levels of start up costs.

As a self employed agent, I imagine it would be down to me to have public liability/indemnity insurance but certainly a point worth mentioning when I speak to them.

I worked for Thomas Cook and Amex in Belgium in corporate travel for a number of years. I have also worked for a consolidator and also worked for a high street type chain in the past.

Hays travel are excellent and, of course, they bought all the Thos.Cook shops following Cook's administration. As far as I'm aware though - I may be wrong as business travel isn't my field - they focus more on leisure travel which is very different of course to corporate although with your experience you should be able to switch much more easily if necessary.

I would think Hays do offer indemnity insurance for a fee. I know certainly Travel Counsellors do.

Hayes would be a MUCH better option than someone like Intel who focus more on recruitment from what I hear. I have been retired for several years now but my advice would be to stick with the bigger, long established companies for possible self employment.

@JadeSeahorse

100% what you have said

I find it very insulting as a TA of over 25 years that people think they can set up a travel agency because they love travelling and booking their own holidays

This is not aimed at you OP as I see you have experience

I'd agree with @travelallthetimeon that list but would also add in Personal Travel Agents at mid counties. You need to have a host agency with great commercials to be competitive (and it is an extremely competitive industry), so backed by Hays, Advantage, Mid counties coop etc.

The only point I'd disagree with from some PPs is that you don't have to be ABTA - Travel Counsellors aren't and neither are the likes of Trailfinders as a retailer. You do need robust financial protection and that can be from a trust account which IMHO is better than ABTA, but I appreciate customers know ABTA.

If you have money and time to invest a franchise with Travel Counsellors or someone like Not Just Travel or Holiday Franchise Company will bring you a sustainable business, but they are expensive (for a reason).

If you're going down the side hustle route I'd beware, it's really not as easy as FB recruiters for the likes of inteletravel make out. The booking is the easy bit, but what happens if you're at your full time job and there's a major issuing resort, a weather incident, natural disaster or even terrorist attack? Good travel agents work insane hours to help their clients in these circumstances, if you can't do that your reputation will be gone. I'd also think about who your customers might be, and why they would book with you rather than another local, experienced agent? If they're price led they'll book online, if they want bespoke service they'll want a professional.

I'm not trying to put you off, it's a brilliant industry to work in but not as easy as it might seem! FWIW I'm not a travel agent but work in the industry across all agencies so have quite an independent view. If I was going to be an agent I'd probably go to Designer Travel or ITE.

Englishgirlapproximately Excellent post!

Sorry if I misled anyone as you are absolutely right and many agents are just ATOL these days due to the huge changes over the years with ABTA. However, I was more making the point that it takes a minimum of 2 years for you to be classed as qualified and even than you are still learning something new every day.

Designer Travel seem to have an excellent reputation but I believe their target is the luxury market where you need to know your "Onions" even more.

@JadeSeahorseI have a few friends at Designer and they have great businesses. From a corporate point of view they're lovely to work with too, and of course part of Hays IG so have great commercials! They very much expect commitment though, they aren't in the side hustle business at all.

ABTA is a funny one these days I think, and I'd love to see it reform and offer real quality assurance but I think it's been largely devalued by allowing so many poor OTAs and MLMs in. It's still worth having I think but the protection is better from a trust.

And I'd absolutely agree, you never stop learning! I've been doing this for years and airline fare rules still baffle me as I don't have much involvement with flights! There's always something new to think about!

EnglishGirlApproximately. It's the "Side hustle," bods that have given the industry such a poor reputation.

How on earth you do the job as a side hustle is beyond me. As you say, the good companies expect a great deal of commitment understandably and with home working you really need to be available 24/7.

Totally understand! I feel the same about anyone with a degree in any subject that think they can go abroad and teach English lol.

I have worn several hats career wise but travel was and is my first love.

I think the travel agencies themselves must bear some blame as they took are guilty of promoting these businesses as side hustles. : (

If you suffer from depression and anxiety, I don't recommend self employment.

The liability, the additional record keeping, keeping up with legislation, inconsistent income, and the 24/7 availability. The buck stops with you. It could exacerbate your issues.

Try being a creative with 4 years of a degree and 25+ years senior CD agency experience and someone side hustling on canva and asking me for help. I’m kind always but it hurts me.

I feel your pain.

But on another note a super interesting thread to read, I’ll take my derail and vanish now!

I strongly disagree with your recommendation. I work better when I am in charge. The depression is exacerbated when I work for others! I have run two successful businesses in the past and I am sure, I can and will do it again, if I deem it is the right path for me to go down at this stage in my life.