Agents closing their office doors and going home to work
Remember when booking a vacation meant visiting a travel agency that overflowed with brochures of exotic places?
Please. That’s so 1990.
Deserted by Internet-savvy shoppers and starved by the loss of airline commissions in the last decade, many bricks-and-mortar travel sellers have closed up shop.
But more than 100,000 people in the U.S. still work as travel agents, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A growing number have left the office and gone home -- often to cyberspace.
Working in their houses, hotel rooms or even coffee shops, they’ve shed overhead and now serve customers from personal computers or laptops or by phone.
Some book airline tickets and general travel; some handle only cruises or packaged tours. Some work alone; some hook up with big agencies or networks. Some make themselves available around the clock; others put in time at night after their day jobs.
Whatever their angle, so-called home-based travel agents are worth knowing about. Many -- more than 40%, by one estimate -- worked in traditional agency offices, sometimes for decades, before “going home.” Many have specialized knowledge or offer personal services, such as delivering travel documents to clients’ homes. Some charge less for their services than the going rate.
The challenge for consumers is finding these agents, who mostly get work by referral, and evaluating their credentials. There’s no central database listing and in most states, anyone can hang out a shingle and claim to sell travel products. (California, which regulates travel agencies, is an exception.)
In fact, no one really knows how many home-based travel agents are at work, although everyone I talked with agreed their ranks are growing.
Joanie Ogg, president of the Alexandria, Va.-based National Assn. of Commissioned Travel Agents, a 19-year-old organization for home-based agents, said her group recently counted 3,500 members, up from less than 1,000 in 2001.
Ogg estimates there are 40,000 full-time or part-time home-based travel agents in North America. A report released in January by Credit Suisse First Boston gave a lower estimate for the U.S. -- 15,000 to 20,000 -- but predicted annual growth of 10% to 15% through the end of the decade.
Carnival Cruise Lines figures it may already get 5% to 15% of its business from home-based agents, said Vicki Freed, senior vice president of sales and marketing.
The two major reasons agents are rushing back home: technology and money.
Agents can now access booking programs, called global distribution systems, from any computer, instead of depending on special equipment provided by a distributor.
Another reason to work from home is low overhead. That need for savings became urgent when major airlines decided, starting in 1995, to reduce and finally end the 10% commissions on plane tickets they paid travel agents.
Janet Turner, president of Turner Travels in Atlanta, moved her agency home in the 1990s, before the final commission elimination.
“I said the day would come when the airlines would stop paying commissions,” she said. “I was going to make my money off tours, cruises and packages. Everyone thought I was crazy.”
Today she sells $1 million worth of cruises, honeymoons and other packaged travel per year. She doesn’t sell plane tickets, except as part of a package.
Turner gets customers from referrals and from her website, www.turnertravels.us, and does most bookings by phone. She sometimes schmoozes with new clients at Starbucks outlets.
She does less business than when she had a storefront, but her profit margin is higher, and she relishes her freedom. “I do my best work in my pajamas,” she said.
Chris Van Beveren, owner of Chatsworth-based Beck Travel, runs a more buttoned-down operation from home, supervising a dozen home-based agents who sell air travel and other products to 600 clients a year. The low overhead helps keep her service fee to $25 per invoice, regardless of party size, versus the $35 or $50 per ticket that many agents charge.
Like many home-based agents, Jennifer Schreiber of Long Beach is a part-time, independent contractor. She has about 30 clients and splits commissions with her host agency, PNR Travel of Marina del Rey. A flight attendant on corporate jets, Schreiber spends about 200 days each year away from home, laptop in tow.
“When I get into my hotel at night, I start returning phone calls,” she said.
Travelers can check out a home-based agent in several ways. Among them:
Get references. Ask your family, friends or church or community groups for names of agents they’ve worked with.
Ask about credentials. States generally don’t license travel agents, but there are other credentials that bolster credibility. Some home-based agents have credentials in their own names; others may hold them as a result of the agencies they work for.
Companies that market travel to people in California are required to have a Seller of Travel registration, renewed annually. For more information, go to www.caag.state.ca.us/travel.
Agents who sell airline tickets in the U.S. generally must be authorized by the Airlines Reporting Corp., or ARC. Agents also may carry an ID card from the International Airlines Travel Agent Network, or IATAN, which requires registrants to offer proof of financial responsibility.
The best-known professional association is the American Society of Travel Agents, www.astanet.com. Among agents most highly regarded within the industry are the estimated 25,000 who have undergone training and obtained certificates from the Travel Institute, a private nonprofit based in Wellesley, Mass., www.thetravelinstitute.com.
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Hear more tips from Jane Engle on Travel Insider topics at latimes.com/engle. She welcomes comments but can’t respond individually to letters and calls. Write to Travel Insider, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., CA 90012, or e-mail jane.engle@latimes.com.
