Why are travel agents so defensive about one bad apple? Here’s a clue …

ishot-5I had to wonder what was wrong after numerous travel agents posted furious responses to today’s story about an agent that acted in an apparently unethical manner. Why were they being so defensive of a colleague who probably ought to be looking for another line of work?

The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, as presented in the American Society of Travel Agents’ 2008 outlook (PDF) offers an explanation: Travel agents are headed toward extinction. Their numbers have shrunk from 111,130 a decade ago to 85,580 in 2007, the last year for which numbers are available. What’s more, the government projects that the number of agents will remain flat through the middle of the next decade.

No wonder they’re upset. But they’re in good company.

My own profession — believe it or not, journalism — is undergoing similar, dramatic changes.

ishot-6

Depressing, isn’t it? There goes my livelihood.

But instead of having a pity party — as some of the agents today seem intent on doing — I’m looking for the next thing. And the smartest travel professionals (easy to spot them: they’re the ones making the more level-headed comments) have done the same. They aren’t looking to the past, but the future.

It would be nice if some of the agents taking the time to rail against me for “bashing” them would also take the time to notice when I recommend the services of a professional travel agent, which I do frequently.

But I understand why they don’t. When the world seems to be falling apart around you, it’s easy to get tunnel vision. It’s something I struggle with, too.

The good news is that the best travel agents will survive. Because I think there will always be a need for a competent travel advisor.

  • John Felker

    TA’s are defensive because you have been known to bash them in the past!

  • Christopher Elliott

    @John. I criticize the bad ones and praise the good ones. That’s not unfair, and it’s not “bashing.”

  • Annette

    Chris, to be fair when one of the first lines of a story say that it’s a mistake to use a travel agent, then you can understand why agents get upset.

    There’s a ton of misinformation out there about travel agents, and what we do, and what we receive in commission or payments. We’ve got customers asking us to rebate part of our income to them because they think we make hundreds of dollars on their booking when in fact we’re lucky to make $100 on it. We’ve had clients ask us to rebate back to them more than we make off of bookings. We’ve got tour operators that we’ve dealt with, passengers already booked and travelled, that haven’t paid commissions yet and aren’t likely to do so. Increasing GDS costs, airlines desperately sending out debit memos, increasing business insurance costs, and yet some of us are still in business because we truly love what we do and want to be there for our clients.

    So when we read articles that tell the public that it’s a mistake to call a travel agent, yes that tends to upset a lot of us.

    Claiming a booking without authorization is inexcusable, if that’s what happened. If the traveller gave no authorization whatsoever then the agent had no business looking into their file.

    But then why did the traveller send the agent the reservation number? There’s absolutely no reason for that unless they’ve agreed to have the agent handle the file. I’m not excusing the agent, but I would not be surprised to learn that’s what happened and the traveller just wasn’t paying attention. It’s shocking the number of clients that don’t listen to us, don’t read what we send them, or don’t pay attention to what we’re saying until there’s a problem because of it.

    Again, if the agent had absolutely no authorization to take over the booking then they were absolutely in the wrong.

  • Lianne

    I’ve been reading Chris’s blog for a couple of years now and sometimes browse the archive when I’m bored. Chris has reccommended using a professional travel agent on MANY occasion, particularly on complicated trips.

    While it would be better to get the agent’s side of the story, what the agent did appears to be, on the surface, unethical. Even if the customer is a total jerk.

    I understand the agent’s frusatration. People are willing to overlook the benefits of paying for an excellent agent in order to pump them for info and get their own “deal.” My mother is one of those people because she’s convinced that the agent can’t possibly find as good of a deal. No matter how many times I tell her its wrong to waste an agent’s time she won’t stop.

    To be fair she’s also scared they will run off with her money if she doesn’t book with the hotel/cruiseline/airline directly. Right now I’m trying to organize a family cruise and she’s scared that the agent I’m working with will “run off with the money” the way those cruise discount agencies did earlier this year even though my agent is well reccommended and positively angelic in her patience.. Unethical actions by the bad seeds hurt the legit agents by painting them all with the same brush.

  • John Felker

    The problem, Chris, is that when calling out the bad ones, you paint the entire profession with the same brush. Not every agent in the world is going to do something that is not ethical, which is what the first sentence of your previous column implies, whether you meant it to or not.

  • Alan Fiermonte

    @Chris: Just curious…have you ever been a travel agent? Ever spent time working as one for a few months, even years, on the front line dealing with all sorts of clients, prospects, shoppers, suppliers (incl. airlines) etc. I have been fortunate enough to not only be an agent, but also an agency manager, a product development/yield manager, contract negotiator, and owner. I also used to work as a hotel executive dealing in the 5-star lodging and F&B hospitality side of the travel business. In that varied experience, I have done everything from mop up rock-star puke and clean rooms for a Saudi Prince…to filing a $1 million dollar weekly ARC ticket sales report (back before IAR)…to booking a Presidential (Reagan) VIP convention event…to outfitting a Class V whitewater rafting expedition…to booking a simple mass market cruise or tour. The common thread in my experience…no marriage (of traveler and travel) is ever as it seems on the surface, no traveler ever turns out to be the perfect spouse as he/she seems in the “infatuation” phase of the courting. As the great ombudsman that you are, if you haven’t had the experience yet, I challenge you to spend 3-6 months working as frontline agent at the standard rate of pay for agents at a major brand name agency and then chronicle your experience in some sort of blog. You may never judge many travel and traveler situations the same again. You will also have insight into how various “systems and processes” work that could conspire to create warped travel situations that defy explanation. Try a major hotel position too…housekeeping or front desk for 3 months. Both would be truly enlightening human and technological behavior observation posts for a journalist of your caliber and reach. By the way, what is your front line hospitality and travel background, if any?

  • http://www.dclikealocal.com Tim Krepp

    Perhaps it’s a generational thing. A post in the earlier article from today recommended word of mouth to select one. Thinking of that, I took an informal poll of friends, co-workers, etc. today and asked if they had a travel agent they liked. I got a blank look, and the most positive response was “I think my parents still have one.” I don’t think a whole lot of people under the age of forty even know what a travel agent is, much less what the benefits of using one would be.

    My parents do use a travel agent. But they are the only people I know that do.

  • http://www.travelwizenow.com Alyse Cori

    First of all,the real “values” are through professional travel agents.The client will never know what the agent could have “negotiated” on the clients behalf.Why setlle for a low priced resort when you could have stayed at a more luxurious resort for the same price! That’s value and a bargain! People think they can just do it on their own, book their own travel and get the best deal.The best “deals” are obtained by agents and clients creating a relationship. If the client does not have enough respect for their agent to advise them of a lower fare they found, I say let them go. They are nicknamed by some agents as “tirekickers”. They call every agency, go on every website and find the “cheapest” package. Most true “professional ” travel agents will offer a better value, by getting an even better offer or sending their client a gift. The client who booked themselves will never know what a better value their agent could have received. It’s too bad people prefer to build a relationship with a computer site than a real person. How do they call if there’s a problem? Reservations agent # 244 or do they prefer the recording and the hold time? It amazes me how many people have all this free time to search the web. Havng not heard the agents side of this, he may have acted ethically. If the agent suggested the resort and took the time to discuss the bendfits of the property as well as their clients preferences, they are entitled to something. Most agents I know, dont use airline vacation packages since they get better offers from companies that work with all airlines, plus make better $$. This agent was probably a new agent if they used the airlines vacation site, unless there was no other option. Many agents charge fees so when things like this happen, they are not out of luck. It is proper protocol to take over a record if the client tried to reach the agent and was unsuccessful. Most considerate clients, understand travel agents dont get paid like doctors and lawyers and make sure they let the company they use know that their travel agent will be calling them and the booking belongs to them.

    I am personally glad there are less agents. Only the unskilled agents looking out for their own benefit are becoming extinct. There is and will continue to be a higher level of travel professional out there to service clients. It’s not the name of the agency, how high their revenue is or how large the agency is that will determine the travel experience you will receive. Like any other service professional you use, it is built on customer service and building a relationship that really matters. See my blog on cheap travel or value at http://tinyurl.com/mnrkl8 or Why you should use a professional travel agent at http://tinyurl.com/n6y44j

  • John

    Ultimately this results from a fundamental change in the TA business. You used to need TAs to make the contacts for your booking. The TAs were paid, through commisions, for making the contacts. There was no out of pocket expense to the traveler for the knowledge and experience of the TA. The internet and airlines have fundamentally changed this dynamic. The internet has opened up the ability for an individual traveler to do their own research at the same time airlines eliminated commissions. The TA gets squeezed and now require fees etc to survive. Suddenly charging fees for a service that used to be free always causes problems (see luggage fees) so unfortunately people will use the TAs knowledge and then book the trip themselves. Essentially, this results in someone using the TAs knowledge without paying for it.
    Also makes it really tough to be a TA.

  • Alexander Torrenegra

    The work of a travel agent, as it is the case of many other professions, has been significantly automated. Computers can, in many instances, do better jobs than humans. Humans, in other instances, will always perform better.

    In my opinion, the best and most successful travel agents of the future will be the ones taking advantage of technology without forgetting the important human touch. For example: what if Zappos.com were to sell travel instead of shoes?

  • Chris in NC

    @John

    Agree with you completely!

    The Internet has made a lot of work previously done by TAs obsolete. On business travel, I frequently book stuff via my iPhone or Laptop while in transit (I don’t even need to speak to a human being anymore).

    My opinion is that many Travel Agents were too proud or naive to recognize how the Internet would change the travel industry. I still see TAs come onto this blog and say “the TA does it better.” Do you REALLY want me to call you to book my weekend trip on WN to fly from RDU to MCO for $100 RT? Why can’t I book it myself? Its not about saving a few bucks either. Its about convenience. I can compare fares and make a booking in less than 5 minutes. Why would I need to call or e-mail you with the itinerary and wait for a response?

    If I did book through a TA and pay the $20-40 to book a flight and my flight was cancelled, what service would I receive? Would you REALLY call me, rebook me and take care of me? If I’m proactive, I can check the weather, flight status (via Internet), etc and anticipate delays and cancellations. In fact, I am counting on the majority of travellers being un-informed so I can beat them to rebookings :)

    I don’t see Chris bashing TAs. Its just that TAs aren’t appropriate for a lot of basic/everyday travel/travel needs. TAs used to have a monopoly. You HAD to use a TA to make travel arrangements. Now, a lot of services are direct to consumer. So, for a TA to continue to be successful they have to offer something that the public is willng to pay for, like good customer service, expert knowedge, or their service saves the traveller time.

    @ Alyse,
    I respectfully disagree that TAs are the only ones that find the real values. I am not a TA, but have done extensive business travel in the past. I have done a lot of bargain travel (and done it ethically, ie no fat-finger fares). It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is a deal, and what isn’t a deal. Also, just like TAs can negotiate, so can the traveller. I’m not afraid to ask. The worst thing is someone says no. But, I am often pleasantly surprised when an agent will say, yes, we can do (fill in the blank).

    I also know WHEN to use an agent and when not to use an agent. When I went to Morocco, I used a TA. When I went to Vail, I didn’t. When I had to fly last minute to Boston for a day trip, I used a TA (didn’t have the time to book it myself). When I fly to Orlando to visit family, I book it direct on Southwest. TAs are a professional service and no different from an accountant, doctor or lawyer. If the service is worth the $$ (ie it costs me more in $$ in time to do the reserach or booking), then its worth it and I pay. For most public travellers a TA is just not worth the extra $$!

    BTW, I never call a TA and get a price quote then buy somewhere else. I am a firm believer in loyalty. No different than when you go to a mom and pop store and advice and service. Yes, they may be more expensive than Wal-Mart, but I believe there is value in paying extra for great service. But if I am buying generic cat food, I’ll stick to Wal-Mart.

  • David Z

    I don’t see Chris bashing TAs.

    And neither do I see Chris negatively brushing TAs in a broad brushstroke, albeit it can’t be helped some people perceive it that way. Well, the past two years I’ve been reading his blog anyway. :)

    If anything, online booking sites make it possible for the average consumer to finally search and book trips on their own without necessarily using a travel agent. Blame technology instead. :P

  • Carver

    Travel agents would do well to grow thicker skins. Its to the point where any negative story about a travel agent is seen as bashing. The reality is that the number of travel agents has decreased due to technology. That is not an indictment on travel agents, but rather the reality of modern travel. Technology has a way of increasing efficiency at the expense of jobs. Consider that we have far fewer long distance operators, gas station attendants, and bank tellers.

  • Jeanne

    I don’t use a travel agent. Why? Can’t find one that knows as much as the TAs that have been posting on here. I called AAA to ask how “Open Skies” was going to affect bookings to Europe – the Omaha expert did not know what I was talking about. I made my airplane reservations online and carefully read the contracts of carriage.

    I could go on and on about similar experiences with other travel agencies in the Omaha area. Frankly, I don’t know a good travel agent in the Omaha area.

    When putting together my trip to Alaska in August during November, I ran across a recommendation in a travel book for a particular agent in Petersburg, AK. I wanted to stop there first, then go across SE Alaska. I came up with a proposed itinerary and e-mailed it off to the person in Petersburg, figuring that a local person would have knowledge and inroads to the best deals and activities. I paid the $100 minimum fee for the agent to work on an itinerary; the contract said that anything booked out of their office would be offset by the $100 I paid. The agent came back with my exact same itinerary – at double the cost per person that I had projected. I tried working with her – said this was my budget, this was the level of lodging I wanted, wanted to do lots of things solo not as part of a group, so forget the group tours. Nothing, she wouldn’t budge – “take it or leave it”. Wouldn’t disclose any details of the proposed itinerary – said that when we paid 1/2 down, we’d get the details. I wasn’t going to give someone $3000 and not know what we were doing, where we were staying (or even level of accommodation) and what kinds of activities we had been signed up for. I declined, said I’d book on my own, but did want her agency to book the ferry tickets for me. She said that she’d spent all of the $100 on planning, and ferry tickets were extra. Since that office is the only retail source for ferry tickets, I was stuck and paid the extra money.

    In return, I eliminated Petersburg from my itinerary – I wasn’t going to spend time/money in a very small town where everyone knows each other – including the travel agents. Petersburg has lost revenue. I got travel insurance to cover us in case something goes awry, and get to go to Alaska for half the price she quoted.

    So, if one of those knowledgeable TAs posting here can point me to an equally knowledgeable person in the Omaha metro area, I’ll check that it isn’t an agency that I’ve already tried and give that TA a shot. I’d like to enjoy the benefits of a good travel agent.

  • Bill

    I have to come out on the side of Chris on this one. He recommends travel agents far more than I would.

    I know there are good travel agents and there are bad travel agents. The challenge is to get a good one. I sense there are a few good ones that post on this site, but none of them are in my local area.

    As I’ve said, they have to cull the bad ones from the bunch and right now, they don’t…at least not fast enough.

  • jen

    @Alan Fiermonte what an absurd comment. Should everyone who wants to use a travel agent have to work in the field before judging the service they receive? My job is hard too, but I don’t expect my corporate travel agent to learn my job for 3 months before booking me a trip. This column is to help consumers get the best value in travel, it is not an advertisement for travel agencies.

    I agree with the many posters who can’t find a decent travel agent. I’d rather book myself than use a random online search to find an agent, and the few people I know who use agents don’t strongly recommend them. No wonder travel agent numbers are declining.

    I just got back from 10 day in Europe – 3 countries – all travel and hotels booked online. There is no way an agent could have booked the trip for what I paid, and there were no problems at all. I know I was lucky, but it makes me very unlikely to call a travel agent in the future.

  • Carver

    One thing that really annoys me is that attitude that the travel agent knows best, that is clearly pervasive amongst many of the travel agents here and elsewhere.

    My last experience with a travel agent was a couple of years ago. I called Amex to book a trip from San Francisco to London in business class. The travel agent quoted me over $5,000 on United for a nonstop. Yet American was 2.4K with one stop in Boston. I pointed this out. The TA become indignent, giving all these reasons why only a fool would take the cheaper ticket.

    Curiously, I don’t think he was angling for a bigger commission, I think he really believed that his opinion was more important than mine. Needless to say I refused to do any further business with that gentlemen.

  • David Z

    One thing that really annoys me is that attitude that the travel agent knows best, that is clearly pervasive amongst many of the travel agents here and elsewhere.

    As a travel agent myself, I can’t help but agree with you there. Along with developing a thick skin.

    One thing that usually annoys me, though, is when people say to me like, “But you’re a travel agent. You’re supposed to know these things.” It can’t be helped some people also expect a lot, to the point of expectations being potentially unrealistic and unreasonable.

    But…it comes with the territory. And I still kinda love what I’m doing. Kinda. :)

  • Naomi Shapiro

    I always thought it was perfectly reasonable to get an opinion or information from a travel agent — and then get back them if I decided to follow through on something they had given to me. Are the travel agents saying now that if I get information from them, I have an obligation to them? But, honestly, the main reason I’m responding here is that I am a travel writer experiencing “the incredible shrinking and disappearing newspapers” (my words) that Chris mentions above – and trying to figure out what “the next thing” is! I used to pride myself on my prescience, but am now at sea. If someone sees the light, please shed a little (light) on me. Thanks.

  • Melissa

    By the way, the BLS 2008 numbers came out and the new number was 86,420 agents. This was an increase over 2007 suggesting that agents losses triggered by 9/11 and the growth of internet travel have finally plateaued. Consistent with the BLS’s forecast of flat growth, but no losses. Of course, our current economic stresses may trigger another negative trend.

    It will be very interesting to see what the 2007 Economic Census data says about agencies when it is published later in the year.

  • Carver

    @Alyse

    I just reread your comment. With all respect, that is a completely ludicrous statement to make. Of course the client can find out whether the travel agent presented then with a good deal of not. If a friend and I are traveling, I use a travel agent, he doesn’t, we can compare what we each received and what we paid. Its not rocket science.

    Its that sort of elitist thinking which really hurts this industry. Travel agents can provide a valuable service. But some people want the cheapest deal out there. By derisely calling them “Tire kickers” the industry shows its arrogance. No other commodities based industry would suggest that comparison shopping is a bad thing.

  • http://www.awtravel.com JasonM

    I’m a travel agent. A good one. I work with some of the best agents in the world.

    Speaking for us, we have _no_ problem with people searching for deals on the internet. We understood that the internet would mostly attract a certain demographic and we aimed for a DIFFERENT demographic. That’s good business.

    When it comes to anything besides a simple economy-class flight or a budget trip, however, I think people are crazy not to use a travel agent. Find a Virtuoso agency in your area and you can be much more confident in the quality of the agent.

    Apples to apples, I can compete with the internet on anything.

  • Joel Wechsler

    @Jen I’m glad you had a successful European trip but I’ curious as to how you arrived at the conclusion that no agent could have booked your trip for what you paiid. This implies a belief that anything done online or direct with hotels is always the lowest price, which is simply not the case.
    @Naomi Shapiro If you meet a doctor or a lawyer at a cocktail party do you ask for free medical or legal advice? That is what you are doing when you ask a travel agent for free advice. While agents may not have gone to graduate schools for 3 or 4 years, many have acquired a great body of knowledge over the course of their careers (like doctors and lawyers) and it is simply unfair to take advantage of that.

  • Carver

    @JOEL

    Isn’t that the same as a travel agent stating that a lay person could never get a better deal. Both are just opinions neither of which is subject to quantitative analysis.

    Also, as an attorney, people hit me up for legal advice all the time. So what? How else are they going to know if I am a good attorney or not. Its really my choice as to how much information I want to give out.

  • carver

    @Jason

    Can you elaborate on that. It doesn’t seem obvious to me, but perhaps I am missing your point. It seems to me that the only real question is the sophistication of the traveler. My flights are mostly domestic and Western European, all in first or business class. I only fly American and One World partners because I like miles and status. The entire booking procedure takes me under 20 minutes. What value can you provide me.

  • LeeAnne

    The one thing that has me baffled the most about the responses here, and on the original article, is the outraged posts from TA’s claiming that Chris said that using a TA is a mistake. For example, in the first response to this article, Annette says, “Chris, to be fair when one of the first lines of a story say that it’s a mistake to use a travel agent, then you can understand why agents get upset.”

    Um, go back and read the article, Annette. CHRIS is not the one who said it’s a mistake. The CUSTOMER did…the guy who had this unethical TA insert her name into his account without his authorization, and collected cash from his trip for having done nothing.

    Can you blame the guy for thinking it was a mistake? As for Chris…he was only doing what a reporter should do: reporting the story, including what the customer said. And he made it clear it was the CUSTOMER who said that, not himself.

    As for whether it WAS a mistake or not, obviously the customer feels it was…and I agree with him. He clearly was capable of doing his own travel shopping, and found a good price both before he called the TA, and after. The TA didn’t tell him about the resort package – he did all his own research. He only called the TA because of a friend’s suggestion, and afterward he regretted it. And then, when he found out that he could get the same deal for half the price, it made sense to cut the TA out – obviously SHE wasn’t out there looking for a better deal for him! He found it on his own. I would have done the same thing.

    Did the TA come to him and say, Hey look I found this trip for you for half the price? No! He found it himself. Had he stuck with the TA and not gone on shopping on his own he would have ended up paying double what he should have. That’s no TA that I would want to use.

    I am not against TA’s. Like others who’ve posted here, I am an educated travel consumer and know when to use a TA, and when to trust my own research and decisions. I travel a lot, and use TA’s about half the time – certainly any time a trip involves itinerary complications or foreign travel to countries I am not familiar with. But for a simple Bermuda resort vacation, I wouldn’t use a TA.

    I also disagree that if I place a single call to a TA about a trip I am planning, or get a simple quote, I am now obligated to book my trip through them. TA’s are salespeople. I, as the customer, am perfectly entitled to price-shop. I would do the same thing for a car, or furniture, or any other high-ticket item I might be looking to buy. Provided I know exactly what I’m looking for, if all I do is call around and get basic price quotes, then I am under no obligation to any of the salespeople who quoted me. I will give my business to the one who gives me the best deal – which may or may not be the cheapest, as I may factor service and reputation into my choice. But the bottom line is that it’s MY money, and I get to decide who I give it to. Smart salespeople know that they won’t win every deal they quote – whether they sell cars, cruises, or resort vacations.

    Note that I am not talking about using the full professional services of a TA and then not paying for them. If I have a TA do the work for me – research the trip, give me various options, advise me on locations, hotels, excursions etc, – that’s completely different. In that case, yes, I am obligated to give them my business, even if I find it for less elsewhere. I used their services and professional expertise, and they have every right to expect to be compensated for that.

    But that is not what happened here.

    I too have been reading Chris’s blog for a very long time. I have never seen him bash TA’s in general, or the travel agent occupation as a whole. If anything, I have seen him recommend the use of TA’s far more than I think is necessary. So the TA’s who are bashing HIM for bashing THEM are being rather disingenuous and foolish, not to mention appearing to jump onto the side of someone in their occupation whom they should be hounding out of business for unethical behavior. Do they really want to align themselves with someone like that?

  • http://www.awtravel.com JasonM

    @carver

    Sorry for the delay!

    I’d love to take a crack at First- and Business-Class airfare. Virtuoso (our consortium) has a dedicated air department with many contracts that could benefit you.

    How do you book your flights?

  • Bruce

    “The good news is that the best travel agents will survive. Because I think there will always be a need for a competent travel advisor.”

    Thank you. I’ve been a Travel Consultant for 20 years and have ‘re-invented’ myself several times to stay current with trends and realities, and my business is better than ever. Because of my customer demographics I am pretty much ‘on call’ at all times and while there’s not much I can do about a blizzard in Chicago there are plenty of things I can and know how to do to keep my clients happy and moving in the right direction. My job is to advise, facillitate and save money for the people I work for. I do it well and I love doing it.
    Safe travels to you all.