Providing you with the latest insights, information, tips and news about your favourite travel experiences and destinations.

1. You Get To Work From Home

Some people like an office, but most of us prefer our homes. Working from home is a great benefit to starting a new business or career, as you get to save time and cost on commuting or renting an expensive office space. When you become a travel agent, unless you are looking to setup a traditional storefront agency for clients to walk-in, then you do not need to have an office. Store-front agencies are out-dated, and most travel agents communicate with customers over the phone and via emails. As long as you have access to the internet and a working phone line, your travel business can be wherever you want it to be, giving you great flexibility.

2. The Perks Are Great

People work hard and save every penny they can to go on annual vacations. It is everyone’s wish to travel more and experience different people and culture. When you become a travel agent, you get to the option of travelling to some of the world’s most exotic destinations, either for free or at significantly discounted rates. Travel Agents go on familiarity or site inspection trips (FAMS) sponsored by product vendors, put together to promote their products to sales agents. On these trips, you get to be pampered and schmoozed by hoteliers and tour operators, all for the purpose of you promoting their product to your clients. You’ll also earn many free stays as sales incentives when you hit certain sales targets set by product vendors.

3. Own Your Business

There are travel agents that work as employees, handling reservations for tour companies and major travel agencies. However, most travel agents work as home-based travel agents, either independent or hosted. This way you get to set your own work hours, be your own boss and reap the financial rewards of your efforts. There are many great benefits to owning your own business, including additional tax write-offs and tax savings.

4. Low Start Up Cost

You can save a lot of time and cost starting your travel business by finding and becoming part of a host agency. For less than a thousand dollars, you can register with a host agency that will provide you with all the tools and infrastructure you need to start selling travel right away. By doing this, you get to avoid expensive fees and startup cost that would be necessary to establish everything on your own. Your Host Agency will take a small percentage of you commission earnings, but you would spend twice as much on overhead by trying to obtain you own IATA license, insurance, training and all the tools necessary to be efficient and compete effectively as a professional travel agent.

5. Flexible Work Hours

To communicate with vendors to get pricing for your clients, you will need to dedicate some time to your travel business during regular business hours. However, this does not take up a significant portion of your day, so the rest of your work hours can be set for the times that works best for you. Having flexibility makes it easy to integrate your travel business into your current lifestyle or schedule.

6. You Can Start Part Time

Unless you are working as an employed travel agent, starting part-time is recommended as your earnings will be 100% commission based and your will take some time to build up your clientele before going full time. Since you are not under any pressure from a boss to meet minimum quotas of work hours, you can start your travel business very part time and keep your full-time job, making travel a source of supplementary income at the outset. The flexible hours allow you to build your travel business in the evenings or on weekends until you are ready to go full time.

7. Training Is Easy

It is not a requirement to take a long, expensive university course before becoming a travel agent. There are a few local jurisdictions that require a mandatory certification that takes a couple of weeks at most to complete. Other than that, the only thing you need to do is contact a host agency, and they will provide you with the tools and training necessary to get started as quickly as possible. Most of the skills required to become a great travel agent are learned on the job, and a good host agency will have ongoing training for you to develop your skills and get better continuously.

8. Expand Your Network

Some of the most successful people prefer to use travel agents when booking their business or personal trips. Due to this, travel agents get to form relationships with many very important people, and those relationships become useful in other areas of their lives. If you want to add some influencers to your contact list, you can start by becoming their travel agent. By helping them with something as meaningful as their annual vacation planning, or important business trips, you get to become a trusted partner. You can leverage those relationships in other areas of your life.

9. The Timing Is Right

In a time of terrorist attacks, civil unrest and ZIKA virus, travellers are not taking any chances and are once again seeking guidance from their travel experts to assist with travel plans. Add that to the fact that the internet is now completely inundated with overwhelming and conflicting information, seeking the advice of a trusted expert is just way easier than trying to do it yourself. The timing could not be better to start your career as a travel agent.

10. It’s A Happy Job

Think about it. You get to travel the world and do site inspections at the most exotic resorts and beach venues. You spend your days online looking at dream travel destinations. You get to help people create some of the happiest memories of their entire lives. Becoming a travel agent means you get to spend most of your days being a part of happy experiences. So many people are miserable at work each day. For this reason, alone, you should definitely become a travel agent.