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A travel agency is a business that sells travel related products and services to end-user customers on behalf of third party travel suppliers, such as airlines, hotels and cruise lines.

What they do

Travel agencies have been organized mostly since the start of commercial aviation although Thomas Cook was an early, pre-flight pioneer. The Portuguese company Viagens Abreu is the oldest travel organization, founded in 1840. Some operate with a chain of stores and others are one store operations. A few of the larger travel agencies sell their own products. Agencies without their own product are arguably more impartial and more likely to offer something to suit the traveller; they are known as independent agencies.

Most travel agencies do not sell airline tickets only; their services vary, and many of them sell more cruise ship packages than airline tickets. Most travel agencies also arrange car rental deals for their customers, and many concentrate on arranging charter or group trips to different destinations. For this, they deal with regular airlines, but many times, they also hire charter airlines. Many travel agencies exclusively represent a small group of supplier airlines, cruise and car hire companies and, often, the logos of the supplier companies are displayed on the windows of the agency's office.

Travel agencies also market and sell train and hotel products. Generally, their goal is to try to fit an ideal schedule onto the requirements of each specific customer.

In the early era of model airplanes, airlines would have large plane models of their companies made and shipped to the travel agencies; these plane models are also available to the general public, but they are among the highest prized airline collectibles.

ASTA

On April 20 of 1931, the ASTA was formed, to defend the rights of US travel agents over the power of the growing commercial airline systems of the day. ASTA, as of 2004, still represents travel agencies.

The word travel agency has changed meaning since the emergence of companies like Thomson or Thomas Cook, who are now considered to be tour operators rather than travel agents. The difference is that tour operators manufacture and sell their own holidays whereas independent travel agents sell holidays from all the tour operators without limiting the range they offer to just their own product. The best travel agents deal honestly with a wide range of customers.

Worldwide services

Travel agencies have expanded to cover the world. Many are located in Europe or the Middle East, for example. Some serve as general service agents for foreign travel companies in different countries.....

The Internet threat

Many agencies feared their services would no longer be needed when many airlines and other travel companies began to sell directly to passengers over the Internet. They were afraid they would be victims of what management science experts call disintermediation ^[1][2].

Another worry was over the fact that airlines have been cutting back the commissions paid to travel agents on each tickets sold; the airlines feel that they are perfectly capable of dealing directly with their own passengers and do not need travel agents as much as in the past to fill seats.

Since 1995, many travel agents have exited the industry, and relatively few young people have entered the field due to a collapse in salaries^[3]. However, others have abandoned the "brick and mortar" agency for a home-based business to reduce overhead, and those who remain have managed to survive by promoting other travel products like cruise lines and train excursions, or by promoting their ability to aggressively research and assemble complex travel packages on a moment's notice (essentially acting as a very advanced concierge).

Many travel agencies have developed an internet presence by posting a website, with detailed travel information. Full travel booking sites are often complex, and require the assistance of outside travel consolidators. These companies such as Sabre and others can provide up to the minute, detailed data on tens of thousands of hotel vacancies.

Some of the popular online travel sites allow visitors to compare hotel and flight rates with multiple companies. They often allow visitors to sort the travel packages by amenities, price, and or proximity to a city or landmark.

Cargo

Although not as involved in the cargo business, some travel agencies also work with cargo airlines and ships. Those travel agencies that do cargo business, however, are not a significant number of agencies.

á xc==References==

^  Andal-Ancion, Angela, Phillip A. Cartwright, and George S. Yip. "The digital transformation of traditional businesses." MIT Sloan Management Review 44, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 34-42.

^  Edmunds, Marian. "A wake-up call for the industry: As competition intensifies, online and mobile technologies offer huge opportunities across all sectors of the travel business." The Financial Times, 13 March 2002, p. 10.

^  Tobin, Rebecca. "Wanted: young agents! Are young people shying away from careers in travel? Agents and travel school operators say yes. Look around your agency—see any young faces?" Travel Weekly 61, no. 43 (28 October 2002): 148-149.

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