HOW TO RUN YOUR OWN DISCOUNT AIR TICKET AGENCY
THE POTENTIAL
The number of people travelling overseas has
risen virtually every year since the early
1950's and, although that figure is now
starting to round off, that's still many
millions of people who travel overseas.
In fact, about several million American people
travel overseas each year, and that includes
many who make several journeys per year,
whether for business or pleasure.
Very few of these journeys are arranged
direct with operators, they virtually go
through travel agents. Hence tons of
potential to start a travel agency business.
Yes, there are lots of travel agents in
existence already, but it's generally a
growth area and accepted that there is
room for more.
A LUCRATIVE OPENING
Despite the fact that more and more people
are travelling, it's very much a changing
market. That is, very budget conscious!
People are looking to travel overseas at ever
lower cost. Cheaper and cheaper than the
year before!
This has changed the market in that people
expect cheap flights and holidays. They
don't expect to pay full price. As a result,
a whole market has been set up to handle
cheap flights and holiday bargains. Often,
these are last minute offers at 'silly',
cheap prices.
If you know where to get these offers, you
can promote them locally and sell them to
local customers, then link them up with the
suppliers. You don't buy anything yourself
(so you don't need any cash), but you will
get a good commission from the suppliers and
satisfied customers who, hopefully, return
year after year, time and time again.
HOW TO SET UP
This is a business that will thrive if you
have a small office or kiosk in a town
center where you can advertise the service
and accept bookings. However, that can be
in the future.
In the early days, this is a business that
you can operate from home, but you will
certainly need a telephone to take enquiries
and make bookings on.
Some neat headed business notepaper will
also be invaluable.
This is a business which you can operate
full time during normal office hours, hence
ideal for someone who has to stay at home.
But it can be worked part time, in the
evenings and at weekends, if you like. This
is when most customers will be making their
travel plans anyway.
No significant capital is required because
you don't actually buy the tickets yourself.
What capital is available will be spent on
advertising. This should be as high as you
can easily afford. It could be as little as
$20, but a higher figure would produce more
profitable results.
Arrange an efficient office filing system,
as an efficient prompt service is a must in
this business.
MAKING CONTRACTS
Before you can start selling the cheap
tickets and holidays, etc, you must find
where to get them from. In the trade, there
are several cheap discount houses who get
details of cheap tickets from airlines,
holiday companies, etc, and resell them to
the trade.
These companies will be pleased to deal with
you, but make yourself look a reputable
company. They will only deal with bona fida
traders and not with private individuals.
The best way of getting in touch with one of
these companies is to take a course. A
couple are advertised in Exchange and Mart,
and the national newspapers.
These courses will tell you exactly how to
operate the business but, more importantly,
they will reveal the special procedure to be
followed to get the cheap tickets.
Make contact with a selection of suppliers so
that you can get relevant information. Some
send out regular bulletins, others have a
telephone hotline for details of the latest
cheap tickets.
ADVERTISING YOUR NEW SERVICE
With contacts made, you can set out to
advertise your service. Initially, remember
that you aren't setting out to compete with
travel agents. There are various services
that they can offer that you can't.
The accent of your service should be the
cheapest possible prices. In most cases,
your local travel agent can't compete with
these because of his overheads, even though
he can buy from the same place as you. That
said, you are offering a no frills service
for bargain hunters, whereas the agent
serves those with more to spend.
It depends on what you want to offer. You
might just offer cheap scheduled flight
tickets to any country in the world. Or you
might offer package tours. Or both. The
commissions vary accordingly to
circumstances. They can be up to 30%
sometimes, whereas most tour brochures will
give you a 10% commission.
In addition, you can sell hotel rooms, car
hire and travel insurance etc. The
commissions on these can be very high
indeed.
The best way of selling is to take out
advertisements in your local paper.
Classified lineage advertisements will do,
but just small blocks are best. The cost
will be very low. Just note that you offer
cheap tickets, or, perhaps give some
examples, e.g. 'New York by scheduled
flight, $389'.
The important thing to note is that you
can't just place one advertisement and wait
to be deluged with response. That won't
work. You really need to place an
advertisement in your local newspapers, if
possible, every day, or every other day.
You can work nationally, but it's better to
stay local to begin with.
Remember that you will be building up regular
custom. So, although advertising costs may
be high in the beginning, they have to reduce
in the future as people come back to you as
regular customers.
OPERATING THE SERVICE
Give your advertisements a couple of weeks to
start bringing in a good response. Then you
should get people ringing you with enquiries
for the full details of your service. When
you get a customer, get details of where they
want to go, when they would like to travel,
and how many people a booking is required for.
The next step is to ring round your contacts
and match things up to provide the service.
With luck, you'll find something that fits
their exact requirements. However, it should
be noted that some cheap tickets are
restricted to certain times - often the
unpopular ones. So, if the exact date is not
available, take some alternatives.
Then go back to your customer and make
agreements. If they have to alter their
plans, you can usually convince them that it's
worth it, as the savings are large.
When you agree on a booking, collect payment
from the customer, then order from the agent.
The tickets will be sent on to you for
passing on to the customer.
One good thing is that the agents probably
won't expect to be paid by you for at least
a month, so you can keep the client's money
in your bank account until you have to pay
the agent. This adds extra profit!
EXPANSION
Basically, the service is as simple as that,
but you do need a flair for organisation. If
you make mistakes, it can be costly and
you'll lose customers.
To expand, go back to your customers and get
regular trade. Most travel agents don't do
this. But if, for example, you had a family
of four booking a package holiday once every
year, that's a good regular income at a
total cost of $3,000.
When you are established, you could probably
set up as a travel agent, although there are
a lot of small details in this work that
don't produce large profits. So, it is best
to handle only cheap flights using low
overhead premises.
This allows you to be the cheapest in town,
no matter who else sets up in competition.
A good method of expansion is to set up
premises. This allows you to be the cheapest
in town no matter who else sets up in
competition.
Another good method of expansion is to set
up in other areas. Perhaps get agents to
work for you from their home. They'll
expect a cut in your commission, but good
profits are still possible.
All in all, you should not expect a massive
commission money-wise on a single booking,
because travel prices are incredibly cheap
these days. But you can make up for it in
volume. With twenty million travellers each
year, what if you just scooped 1,000 in your
region, spending only $1000 each!
