Travel has grown difficult thanks to virus-related complexity, uncertainty, cancellations, delays, border restrictions and testing requirements. As a result, many travelers booking a beach getaway or other trips are turning to professionals to help them with plans. Travel advisers—don’t call them travel agents anymore—are cool again.
“With the pandemic, our credibility and our necessity have gone off the charts, and I think we’re now advocates,” says Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg, co-president of Valerie Wilson Travel, a New York-based leisure and corporate travel agency that is a unit of Frosch International Travel. “Travel is possible. It’s just difficult.”
Business, through online inquiries or telephone calls, is up for travel agencies of all types and sizes, from large companies like InteleTravel to two-person operations and even to newly opened companies. According to a flash poll conducted by ASTA, the American Society of Travel Advisors, in early March, 76 percent of travel advisers are seeing an increase in customers in 2021, compared to before the pandemic, and 80 percent are hearing from travelers who have never worked with a travel adviser before.
More on InteleTravel below - its travel agents work from home - another big change from the agencies of old
Comments