Is a Travel Agent Renaissance Coming?

Travel agent
Photo: Adobe Stock.

The coronavirus pandemic has sadly forced many bricks-and-mortar travel agencies to close, putting many skilled travel agents out of jobs. To make matters worse for surviving travel agencies, airlines everywhere are now trying to bolster their own recoveries by slashing commissions paid to travel agents.

Yet, as international travel slowly rebounds, experienced travel agents are now as useful as ever.

Travel agents can help clients to navigate complex travel restrictions

Many experienced travellers who would previously have booked their own international travel prior to COVID-19 are now turning to travel agents. There are two very good reasons for this.

Firstly, travel agents can help their clients to navigate the complex and ever-changing international travel requirements in the wake of the pandemic.

Many countries have reopened their borders, but there is now a lot more work involved in booking an overseas trip. Not only do you have to monitor the entry requirements for your destination – which might change – but those of any third countries you transit through en-route.

There have also been large amounts of flight cancellations lately, due to both the pandemic and more recently due to airspace closures associated with the conflict in Ukraine. This adds another layer of complexity when planning travel.

A good travel agent can help their clients to book flights that are actually likely to run, and that can get you to your destination with the least possible hassle. They will know, for example, that international transits through places like Taipei, Shanghai or Brunei are currently not allowed, and that there are extra requirements involved if you want to transit through Bangkok.

If you attempt to DIY your international travel planning, or just book the cheapest flight that appears on Skyscanner, you could end up booking a “ghost flight” that is highly likely to get cancelled. Some online travel agencies (and occasionally airlines themselves) might even sell you an itinerary that is impossible to fly due to border restrictions.

Of course, not all bricks-and-mortar travel agencies share the same level of experience when it comes to booking COVID-19 travel. When choosing a travel agent, it’s worth looking for somebody who has continued operating during the pandemic as they will likely be more knowledgeable on the current travel situation than somebody who was stood down and worked in a different job until last week.

travel agent renaissance
Planning overseas trips in 2022 is more complicated than before the pandemic. Photo: Scopio.

Travel agents can save you the hassle of dealing directly with airlines

The second key benefit of booking with a travel agent who offers good customer service is that it takes the hassle out of dealing directly with airlines that don’t answer the phone or respond in a timely fashion.

For many years, airlines relied on travel agents to promote their products and sell seats on their flights. But increasingly, airlines are now viewing travel agents as a cost rather than a source of revenue.

As airlines try to recover from COVID-19 by cutting costs, many have slashed the commissions paid to travel agents. For example, Qantas will soon cut the base commission paid to travel agents for selling international tickets from 5% to 1%. Qantas already pays no commission to travel agents for selling domestic and trans-Tasman tickets.

Air New Zealand recently announced similar reductions to travel agent commissions.

Instead of paying commission to a “middle man”, airlines nowadays want to own their customers. So they are doing everything they can to encourage customers to book directly with the airline. This is why, for example, Qantas recently added extra benefits like free seat selection and free cancellation within 24 hours for customers who book flights directly on Qantas.com.

Why book on Qantas.com
Screenshot from the Qantas website.

Yet, many airlines – including but not limited to Qantas – don’t seem to have enough staff at the moment to actually service all of these customers. If you’ve tried calling Qantas recently to book or change a flight, and you don’t have Platinum or Platinum One status, you probably would have realised this by around the third hour of waiting on hold.

While Qantas’ customer service on the ground is among the worst in the industry at the moment, this problem also affects other airlines including Singapore Airlines, British Airways, Finnair and Air Canada which have all had very long call centre wait times lately.

If you are able to book your flights online, and there are no changes to your flights, you’ll probably be fine. But if the airline changes or cancels any of your flights, and you need to speak to somebody to fix the issue, this could take hours of your valuable time.

By booking with a travel agent who is responsive and provides good service, they’ll deal with this hassle for you. Even if they charge a small fee for their service, it may be worth it for the time saving to you.

In 2022, travel agencies are in a tough business

Ironically, despite the enormous value they can offer to travellers in the current climate, many travel agencies have been struggling to make turn a profit lately.

The lack of travel demand during the pandemic clearly hasn’t helped. As airlines try to claw back commissions, one of the major sources of income for travel agencies is also being taken away.

In trying to sell the upcoming 80% reduction in commissions to travel agents, Qantas said:

It is expected this change will likely accelerate the growing industry trend towards a “fee for service” model that has already taken place in many markets overseas and among several agency chains in Australia.  This compensates travel agents for the added value and bespoke service they provide customers beyond the logistics of booking, particularly for managing complex itineraries.

Travel agencies do earn commission from selling things other than flights, such as hotel bookings, tour packages and travel insurance. But increasingly, travel agents will need to start charging (or increase) base-level service fees in order to survive and thrive.

This means customers may ultimately soon have a choice: Book direct with the airline, or pay a small additional fee for someone else to help you.

Given the complexity of managing international travel at the moment, and the inability of some airlines to provide basic customer service, many customers may indeed be prepared to pay a little more for personalised service from an experienced travel agent. Despite the many challenges their industry is facing, good travel agents should be able to capitalise on this silver lining.

 

You can leave a comment or join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum.

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
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This comment may not be relevant to AFF members in Australia - but as an AFF Australian expat overseas - yes.
There is definitely a move back to using qualified/credible travel agents.
For countries such as in the region where I am (SE Asia) - online flight aggregators are no longer reliable. Too many reports of flights showing up on the usual flight aggregators - that when booked - turn out to have never been scheduled, or have later been cancelled.
As per the article linked by Matt - Ghost flights have been far too prevalent in the past year, and continue to be.
Even booking direct with airlines (for regional flights) - I see far too often that the country regulatory authorities had never approved the flights - the airlines had posted them in anticipation of the routes re-opening without any guarantee. Leaving the passenger picking up the pieces
Travel agents have been coming back to the mix. (and this is from someone who used to book all of their flights online)

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We will continue to use our travel agent for quite a few things. We have always booked RTW,Circle airfares plus the BA return BKK when on special.There has been no price advantage booking direct. That will change but from experience when things go pear shaped the TA is invaluable.
Three examples stand out.
Qantas grounding. We were due to fly to BKK on QFF 2 days after this was announced. We were in Sydney and had been out all day and hadn't heard the news. Got back to the hotel to see the news so immediately decided to email our TA. However there was already and email from our TA with the changed booking to BA.

Yellow shirts take over of BKK, We were scheduled to fly out on BA to BKK the day after.Added to that mrsdrron had fractured her patella that morning so glad to accept BAs offer of full refund. Previously on a non BA booking it took 3 months to get refund and TA warned it might be some time. money was back into our account in 3 days.

Belmond. When we travelled to Burma we got a Belmond package staying at their Yangon hotel and using their river cruise. There were several problems which we let Belmond and our TA know about. Belmond just said sorry and goodbye. Our TA then complained and $3000 compensation received.

We are well in front. But our TA is a private agency with extra benefits such as being a Virtuoso agent.

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I'm going to start by saying no, I can't see a massive resurgence. Sure the private agencies might be popular but the run of the mill Flight Centre or Hello World (which makes up the bulk of the agencies) aren't going to help much and in my opinion might stuff your trip up even more then you'd hope.

Travel restrictions constantly change (even whilst on the trip) and no travel agent is going to spend excessive amounts of time constantly following and updating their clients on these changes unless there is something in it for them. As mentioned in the article airlines are further decreasing the amount of commission meaning they need to sell something else (tours/insurance etc) to actually make money.

I've got family into cruises and amazingly the local flight centre has been pushing and selling cruises throughout the pandemic despite no actual date. More recently I know someone flying from SYD-SIN, amazingly the work travel agency booked them on a non VTL flight meaning they weren't eligible to travel, amusingly they weren't alone at the airport showing up for the flight but being rejected. Had they booked direct with SQ they would have seen the numerous banners that appear about VTL flights on the website.

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My wife and I had a long-delayed European holiday over December and January and, yes, it was affected somewhat by COVID delays and cancellations. But the fact that we had a local inbound travel agent on the ground meant that the disruptions were minimal and stress free. The travel agent efficiently dealt with the rebooking, cancellations and itinerary changes.

I don’t always use travel agents, but at the moment until things settle down, they’re invaluable.

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Because booking through travel agents usually renders self serve functions on the airline website inoperable, it's a hard no from me.

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God no haven’t used a travel agent since I was a student and got special student deals that had to be booked through a travel agent.

I can however see that for older or less confident flyers they would be helpful though.

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I’m very experienced booking travel myself online. And I still sometimes do that for some simple point to point stuff.
But I have an amazing TA whose knowledge and ability far exceeds my capabilities and they do anything non-vanilla. Their service is something I could never replicate online.
Once you find the right person, no way you would it yourself.

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Is a Travel Agent Renaissance Coming? is an article written by AFF editorial staff:

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

Even pre COVID I used an experienced travel agent. Their fees were a small price to pay for peace of mind when plans changed during my travels. Now (re)booking a Europe stop and agent found a route with reward seats we had no hope of finding ourselves.

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Is a Travel Agent Renaissance Coming? is an article written by AFF editorial staff:

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

During the major lockdowns of Covid I had to cancel several flights and accommodation. Those booked with travel agents caused the most issues. Working through an agent delayed the process, made it more complicated and ultimately cost me money as the agent kept their fee. I will never use a travel agent again. They provide little to no assistance, usually have less experience in managing issues than a FF and provide no material savings. Personally I hope this is one middle man industry we see gone for good.

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Because booking through travel agents usually renders self serve functions on the airline website inoperable, it's a hard no from me.

That's an issue for me, where I have to book through our work travel agent. Although, they do have a good 24 hour support centre and can make changes quicker, transfer flights and manage refunds better than I could. For my leisure travel, most of the time we book our own flights, but for something a bit more complex, or first time to a country, I use small specialist travel agents to save the worry.

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