Any specialist travel agents around ?

[icecreamwednesday]

This is probably an unrealistic fantasy but I think I'd be a great travel agent if only for a specific sort of holiday, luxury long haul islands.
I'm well travelled and love searching out deals for family and friends. DH has a niche hobby that can only be done in certain locations that I've become very knowledgeable about and we're all keen SCUBA divers.
I have no professional travel qualifications and work in a role unrelated to travel.
Tell me to get a grip?

I think that travel agents are on the decline. All info is on the internet, if you have the time to look. I don't think that the wages are very high. Unless you work for a very high end company

Thanks Hugge, I suspect you're right. I do all my searching online so why wouldn't any other holiday makers?

Hi Icecreamwednesday,
There is a "pyramid" of service levels in the travel industry, like any other industry. At the base of the pyramid you have the online booking engines who provide a service at a competitive price.
At the peak you have experts who personalise your itinerary and experience so it's unique to you. The opportunity cost of your time and your budget are the differentiating factors.
We have research that says that most people spend 40 hours a year researching (and dreaming!) destinations and experiences.
What if you could use the 40 hours to learn a new skill and say to a travel expert, "I want a personalised diving experience in X and I just want to turn up at the airport with my passport with everything sorted out for me?" A local expert works with me to create the exact itinerary, provide all the services so that you don't waste precious time.
Full financial protection, a 24/7 duty desk, repatriation back to the UK in case of any emergency at our cost, an App that has all your details in one place, all included in your holiday.
So the question is, "would you prefer me and my team of experts who will spend whatever time it takes to get you a perfect experience or would you rather spend your time (typically a week out of your life) doing your best to get the same result without having access to the information and systems I have?
Of course, there's no wrong answer! .

you could become a travel blogger and if your DH has a niche hobby he could blog as well. you get paid for adverts once you build up a large following. it is hard work though

Thier are people out there that want everything planned out for then and there are companies that do it all for you. They make there money by charging the published price for a hotel then get a better rate from the hotel / airline.

Went to New Zealand and we paid for our own flights-as the other couple we were going with were traveling from a different airport.

But they insisted on sorting out hotels through a travel agent which costed about £300 more per person when compaired to the prices I got when I searched the hotels. The hotels were nice but uninspiring all part of a big chain and well used by coach trips

So as you can see the travel agent made at least £1200 for there time booking hotels so if you can get yourself set up there is money to be made.

You could offer the funkier hotels/glamping/beach bungalows accommodation.

Just get your name out there and see what happens.

Spent a month in travelling vietman Thailand and Borneo this year all travel and accommodation came in at just under £2k each and stayed in some wonderful hotels. Most tour operators would have charged £6k for this kind of trip to be organised.

You could become a Travel Counsellor. They're self-employed but part of a network so you have the support structure.

We sometimes travel independently, sometimes pay an expert to sort everything out for us. I haven’t got 40 hours (or more) to research all trips.

This year I researched and booked a holiday travelling round Iceland. Locations, cars, visits, excursions.

This Xmas we are going on a group trip to Sri Lanka - paying more.
Next summer we’ve had a tailor made tour designed around our specific needs - bloody extortionate!

There’s a market definitely at the top end. Experts have value in all fields.

I met this lady on a dive trip in the Maldives. She's an American travel blogger/travel agent. I think she only booked people to places she'd personally been so seemed to do loads of travelling - more than I could have stomached. I got the impression she makes good money doing it?

travelsort.com/

OP, I was a very senior travel consultant for over 35 years and had my own business for the last 17 prior to early retirement.

Unfortunately, it is one of those careers which appears pretty glamorous but realistically is very stressful. Customer expectations are extremely high nowadays and often unrealistic as the business has changed massively since internet booking became available. You are constantly reliant upon 3rd party suppliers - e.g. airlines, hotels etc. - not letting you down but unfortunately things often do go wrong which are completely beyond your control, e.g. strikes, inclement weather, suppliers going bust overnight, hotels mixing up confirmed reservations to name but a few. On top of all this you could do a huge amount of work over several days for a client only for them to then compare your quote with other agents, the internet etc. - as you have done all the work in advance it would only take other sources a few minutes to cost - and you end up losing the sale.

Agents are constantly undercut by tour ops, hotels, airlines etc. to avoid paying commission, (Airlines haven't paid commission for years now so any flight booked via an agent will include a service fee), and margins are very tight indeed so the financial rewards are not great at all these days. ☹️ Loads of my former colleagues have retired early, like me, or left the industry altogether and taken up a new career.

Finally, as someone has already pointed out, travel agents are on the decline. You can join a company as a non qualified agent but it would probably incur a huge joining/training fee and I certainly wouldn't recommend it. The responsibiIity is huge where even the slightest error/misspelling could cost you hundreds if not thousands of pounds.😱

I would stick with your enjoyable hobby and seek a more rewarding, supported career. 30 years ago I would have said totally different!