Travel Agent in the Leisure Industry Report (Assessment)

Introduction

Leisure sector is one of the highly developing now as living in the modern world, many people spend too much time at work and when it comes to leisure they are unable to understand what they want to do.

Planning leisure time and helping people understand what they want to do is a complicated process as tastes differ. Moreover, the work with people is always complicated. Travel agents are people who spend their time on organizing vacation for those who are busy and when it comes to journey they prefer to use the services of the professionals.

Travel agents are not just people who offer the country to travel and the hotel, travel agents are those who organize all the sides and details of the trip doing all possible that a client should worry about nothing.

The responsibilities of travel agents

Travel agents are responsible for making sure that their clients are satisfied with the received services. To guarantee such effect, travel agents have to perform a number of activities. First of all, one of the main responsibilities of a travel agent is to create a tour package.

This is a number of services which include all the necessary items while traveling. Buying a tour package, a client should just pack his/her things and get to the airport. All other services should be included in the tour package. Transportation, transfer, accommodation, excursions and other services are usually included in the tour packages.

In most cases travel agents sell the tour packages which were created many years ago and tourists constantly go there. However, there may be cases when some clients want something unique, or the tour package has become out of date. In this case travel agents are responsible for developing an absolutely new tour package.

This work is rather hard and time consuming as in most cases the development of a new tour requires the travel to the new place, search for interesting attractions and trying to make sure that the quality of the services and their price are balanced.

Additionally, travel agents are responsible for promoting and marketing their business, making financial and statistical records to calculate the income rate and budgeting for the future projects, dealing with customer and doing all possible to meet their expectations.

The profession of a travel agent is a complicated as working with people, all travel agents should possess the knowledge of psychology trying to predict the desires of clients, to make agreements with travel partners such as airlines and hotels, to organize bookings and schedules which may be completed for one year in advance.

The value of travel agents in the contemporary world

The value of travel agents in the modern world cannot be overestimated. Many people got used to luxury and comfort and selecting the service which is going to organize their leisure such people want to have the best.

Most of businessmen are not going to search on the Internet trying to understand what place they want to visit, which hotel they will use and what documents they are to gather to get a visa. Travel agents are created for such cases.

This profession requires from people high education, creativity, knowledge of psychology and the ability to work with people. Travel agents should know the range of the services they provide and the countries they may offer to the clients.

Being too busy, many people are unable to think about the place they want to visit, therefore, it is the responsibility of a travel agent to offer the places which may be interesting for a client on the sum of money he/she can spend.

Travel agents are like the wedding organizers or the office managers in the company. Their services may be performed by people themselves, but due to the sharing of responsibilities, tough schedule and much work, many people prefer to shift their responsibilities to others making all possible to get the highest profit from this.

What motivates travel agents in the leisure sector?

Travel agents are highly motivated people in the leisure sector. Being able to create the unique services, these people may get more money. If to imagine the modern tourism, it becomes obvious that most of the popular places are always abound with people.

However, there is a group of people who want to have a rest in the places where they will not meet to many tourists. Such services are unique as a travel agent will have to create the tour package with well not be used by the masses. The unique services cost more in all spheres, therefore, the financial part is the fist motive.

The ability to work with people and to satisfy their needs is another factor. The observation of the personal success, the opportunity to see that you managed to help another person with the choice, to see the grateful eyes is also important. Work with people is a complicated affair which is also pleasant.

One more factor which motivated travel agents in the leisure sector is the opportunity to see the world. When travel agents develop a new tour they have to visit this new place. Moreover, there may be the necessity to visit the already existing tours to make sure all the services are completed properly.

The challenges of managing travel agents

It is rather difficult to manage travel agents in the modern competing world. The competition is so high that it becomes hard to sell the product and to develop a new tour package. Travel agents should be familiar with marketing sphere as to sell the product, it should be correctly advertised.

The reduction of the prices is not really effective with some category of people, however it still remains the main marketing aspect. Most travel agents are creative people who may have complexities with documentation. Moreover, there are different problems with selling the booked services.

If travel agents are unable to sell those, the company may lose great sum of money. The seasonal changes also affect the travel agents who should search for the ways to sell the product at any place, price and quality. Managing travel agents one should understand the peculiarity of work of these people as only in this case travel agents will be able to be cope with their work effectively.

Sharing of the responsibilities is one more issue which should be considered by the managers as travel agents should work in agreement, without allowing many people develop the same tour package.

Succession planning for travel agents in the leisure sector

Travel agents should carefully plan succession in their sector to make sure that the further agents will be informed about the work which has already been done. It is important to have good archive where the data about the tour packages with the statistical data about the most successful and interesting ones is gathered.

Travel agents should also care about the list of the clients who use their services every year with the concise data about all the travels of the client with the reflection. The information is one of the main aspects in travel agent’s work, therefore, sharing the data, agents should make sure that the next travel agent will use the collected information appropriately.

Modern technologies and the development of software allow travel agents gather al the necessary information and keep it in computers. Special software programs devoted to booking places and composing the tour packages are able to save the information about clients and their desire.

Planning in travel agency department is important as in another sector of leisure industry. Good planning brings much profit and the successful succession planning for travel agents in the leisure sector adds to the reputation of the agency indirectly and improves its image.

People will return to the agency and will tell their friends about it if they are satisfied with the services.

The importance of travel agents in visitor attraction operations

The place of the travel agents in the visitor attraction operations is high as planning the trips and developing the tour packages, travel agents should pay attention to entertainment. Most of the hotels have simplest attractions, animators and other services which may help people enjoy their vacations.

In case the hotel does not have enough attractions and services for entertaining, travel agents should search for the nearest places where tourists may go. Travel agents are to spend much time on selecting the most appropriate place as the services tourists get there will be reflected on the image of the travel agency.

The reputation of the place of entertainment should be appropriate. Thus, agents play important role in the development of the places of attraction in the recreations. Travel agents are to check the place before sending tourists there, that is why the taste and the creative thinking of these people is the main factor in developing the entertainment program.

Moreover, the places of interest tourists are to visit also depend on the informative nature of travel agents. A good travel agent will always offer a good program for their clients and point on the most exciting attractions.

Conclusion

Therefore, it should be concluded that the profession of a travel agent is important. Being too busy, people are unable to waste their time on planning their trips.

Many working people do not have enough time to have a rest, therefore, when people are about to go for a trip, they prefer to use the services of those who are can professionally organize their vacation. In many cases, travel agents care about everything, document, visas, transfer, hotel and excursions to make sure that a client is satisfied.

The variety of places and services help travel agents work with people of different income and social status. The profession of a travel agent is creative and interesting as composing the tour packages agents are to use their imagination to make sure that the work they perform is going to be in a demand.