What You Need to Know About Becoming a Travel Agent

By Chris Buseman

The travel industry is in recovery mode. Now may be the perfect time to pursue the travel agent career you’ve always dreamed about. Here’s how.

The global pandemic took the wind out of travel industry sales and employment, forcing the industry to focus on survival. As borders have loosened, the business has begun to rebound. If you are thinking about becoming a travel agent, now may be a good time to launch your career or business.

A career as a travel advisor is not for everyone, one does not magically become successful overnight. It takes plenty of planning, commitment and energy. Yet for the right person, it’s an exciting, enjoyable and lucrative way to make a living or even alternate income. The starting point is answering two fundamental questions:

• Are you well suited to the job?
• Are you prepared to follow a structured path toward success?

If you can’t affirmatively answer both questions, then you should consider pursuing another career path. But if you can, an exciting journey awaits you.

Do You Have What It Takes?

Travel jobs tend to get great press. People love the idea of free family trips and the ability to explore different places. Discounted personal travel is always enticing as well. On the flip side a career in travel can be high-pressure and call for irregular hours. Sometimes client plans go awry, leaving them stranded, angry, or misconceived. These situations can lead to the travel expert providing unintended and unplanned priority servicing in addition to their usual day-to-day duties. Due to the dynamic environment travel experts operate in, the field requires rigorous research to stay on top of an evolving marketplace. If you’re interested in becoming an agent, start by leaving the job’s polished image behind. Do some digging and try to connect with people currently in the field to see if you are a good fit. Then ask yourself the following questions.

• How do you fare working from home? The era of bricks-and-mortar travel agencies is winding down. Today, people often establish travel agent careers out of their homes, either affiliating with a host agency or setting up their own small agency. This lifestyle offers tremendous flexibility and slashes overhead costs. It takes a driven person to thrive while working at home. Someone who is highly self-motivated, disciplined and well-organized adjusts better to this work style.
• Do you have a passion for travel and helping others? Many people have a travel passion, but few are well-versed in customer service. Visualizing and facilitating other people’s travel dreams while placing your own potential bias or ambition on the backburner is key. As with many customer-service jobs, the human element can be difficult and excellent communication skills are paramount.
• Are you a micromanager and a multitasker? Learning about destinations is a crucial part of the role. Understanding the features and benefits of various travel offerings is equally important. Project management skills will also stretch a long way, dealing with multiple details, you will need systems to keep track of every task. The ability to juggle them is also essential.
• Are you ready to make a serious commitment? Some people view the job as a hobby . . . something to which they can devote five or ten hours a week. Generally speaking, this mentality can be effective if you are only operating in a limited, part-time capacity; servicing only friends and family. In order to create a larger scale, successful operation, devoting time, energy, and resources is a must.
• Are you entrepreneurial? Most travel agents today are independent contractors working for an established agency. Or they have their own small agency. Either way, becoming successful requires having an entrepreneurial mindset. You must like to call the shots, to take risks and to work really hard. You must love—well, demand—to work for yourself. You also must enjoy wearing many hats. Based on the crisis du jour, you’ll either be your firm’s chief financial officer and marketing director or its sales manager and IT administrator. If you get frustrated at always being in “fix-it” mode, this is not the job for you. The “do-it-all” pressure will be less if you affiliate with a host travel agency. That entity will provide most, if not all, of your support services, as well as stock your “portfolio” of travel services.
• Can you cope with stress? Angry or frustrated clients may only be the beginning. Other sources of discontent may be the mistakes your travel suppliers make or geopolitical events outside of your control. An ability to keep your cool during crises is a key personality trait of successful travel agents.

Will you follow a structured path to success?

Once you decide you are well suited to the field, next you must pursue it in an organized way. Industry leaders have produced entire books, manuals and websites on this topic. There are also many host agencies of all different shapes and sizes supporting various parts of this journey. Next up is a high-level outline of how to achieve your first job as a travel agent or advisor.

• Decide on your niche. Do you want to specialize in travel to one part of the world? Or focus on luxury travel or adventure travel? How about something entirely unique and on the rise? Selecting a niche is a principal decision that can help differentiate you from your competitors. Having a niche or multiple niches can help provide your business with more transparency and also attract a larger number of prospective customers seeking different types of travel or experiences.
• Determine your preferred work environment. Do you want to join an established agency as an employee or as an independent contractor? Or would you rather set up your own business so you can fully “curate” the travel services in your portfolio? It all comes down to personal preference, specialization, and the amount of diversification you seek. But if you enjoy the variety and unpredictability of being an entrepreneur, you may want to pursue your own venture.
• Get certified or trained through a host travel agency. Many people breaking into the travel field choose to affiliate with a host agency. Not only do these organizations provide access to travel services and suppliers, they also offer robust opportunities to network with other agents and to complete formal training. Since the number of host agencies has grown over the years, the challenge is to find the right one for your needs. Ask other agents which hosts they recommend. Also, check internet resources such as Host Agency Reviews and Find a Host Travel Agency to identify and research potential host partners.
• Get certified or trained on your own. This involves completing courses and receiving a travel industry certification. The leading provider is The Travel Institute, which offers the Certified Travel Associate (CTA) and the Certified Travel Counselor (CTC) certificates. Other training opportunities are available from groups such as Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) and International Air Transport Association (IATA).
• Build out your business. If you decide to go the self-employed route, you must design every element of your company, from internal systems (accounting, webpages, etc.) to external elements like branding and digital marketing. Host agencies will handle these tasks for you but will absorb a portion of your income proportional to sales. If you elect against signing on with a host agency, then you should expect to spend some time and resources securing a business name and website address, getting licensed, purchasing necessary technology, setting up a legal entity (LLC, sole proprietorship, etc.), equipping your home office and more. With so many key decisions to make in a compressed time frame, you will likely feel intense pressure. Having an entrepreneurial temperament will help get you to the better side of the business.

Managing Travel Agent Risks

Once you enter the travel field as an employee or as an independent business owner, you will be extremely busy finding and serving clients. If you’re an owner, you’ll also have to run your business, which includes protecting yourself against client lawsuits.

Why would clients want to sue you? In most cases it is because they believe you hurt them (directly or indirectly) physically, emotionally or financially. All it takes is for a client to perceive wrongdoing in order for them to resort to litigation. Here are some mistakes that could land travel professionals in legal hot water:

• Failing to provide promised services. When travel clients fail to receive a service they paid for (or have much different expectations of what they actually receive) and sustain a financial loss as a result, they might bring litigation to recover their funds as well as allege additional damages.
• Not honoring agreed-upon pricing. Travel advisors may sell a service at one price, but a service provider or supplier may insist on higher price or contractual changes. When clients refuse to pay the difference, they might be unable to receive the promised service. When this involves ground transfers or hotel rooms, a pricing dispute might literally leave them stranded in an unintended location or country. Such incidents can result in litigation against travel advisors who may have deviated from their duty of client care.
• Misrepresenting facts about a travel service. A travel agent with larger income needs may (intentionally or not) misconstrue a hotel, attraction, or experience. Expectation gaps can easily result in client dissatisfaction, as well as legal action.
• Failing to discover and disclose hazards. Travel advisors aren’t liable for the negligent acts of their supplier, but they are required to fully disclose the known hazards and risks of the services suppliers provide. For example, if an adventure travel package has resulted in injuries or deaths in the past, then advisors need to communicate this information to their clients. Outside of supplier’s holiday packages or products, travel agents, agencies, and advisors owe a due diligence to the client in providing the full and practical image of destinations chosen, which includes current and past vents, known perils, and even societal norms.
• Not sharing details. Travel advisors have a duty to inform their clients about travel documents, limits on reservation changes, foreign-country entry requirements and the availability of travel insurance. If they do not and this omission results in a client injury, disrupted trip or financial loss, lawsuits may ensue.

Enter Travel Agent E&O Insurance

Errors and omissions (E&O) insurance mitigates the risks of providing travel services to clients. It’s a type of insurance that covers your legal expenses, settlements, and judgments when sued for professional negligence. Paying your insurance premium grants access to an attorney in the event a lawsuit is brought forth against you. Not only does E&O insurance shield your personal and business assets against client claims, it also safeguards the insured from frivolous lawsuits, preventing unnecessary out-of-pocket expenses and unexpected time off from work.

E&O insurance covers you when you make a mistake or overlook important details which financially, emotionally, or physically injure a client resulting in damages. When this happens, your insurance provider will:

• Supply you with an approved defense attorney at no extra expense to you.
• Assign a claims adjuster to handle your case.
• Hire expert witnesses on your behalf.
• Pay for arbitration, mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution.
• Pay for court administrative expenses.
• Pay for settlements and judgments held against you (in accordance with the policy)

The total cost to resolve your case can easily reach six figures or more. Without insurance, a travel agent or agency is creating a situation in which they are greatly exposing their livelihood, leaving a business and personal assets vulnerable to out of pocket expenses.

What to Look for in E&O Insurer

Given the importance of protecting your travel business against client lawsuits, it’s crucial to pick an insurer that will stand behind you. Here are some things to consider:

• Easy, online application processes with instant certificate of insurance issuance
• Competitively priced coverage from an insurance provider with a presence at professional travel conferences and industry events
• Access to a 24/7 risk management hotline and attorney to course-correct potential incidents before the amount to litigation
• Best-in-class customer support
• Established carrier strength with top ratings from insurance analysts like A.M. Best>
• Comprehensive coverage for your business name and all employees or independent contractors, coverage for additional insureds
• Risk management content to promote safe clinical and business practices

360 Coverage Pros offers Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance programs for travel agents, travel agencies tour operators, and meeting planners. Coverage is available for as low as $29.33 per month. To learn more, visit our website.