Published March 2002

In Internet age,
travel agents compete
by offering expertise,
service skills

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

At a time when airline, hotel and car rental reservations are just a mouse click away, Beth O’Donnell is cheering the Internet’s impact on the travel agency industry.

“A lot of people in the industry view it as a big negative, but I think it’s been fabulous,” said O’Donnell, head of Edmonds Community College’s Travel and Tourism Department.

She cites the amount of information online for would-be travelers to access, “so they can come in and really work with an agent to plan a trip.”

Then, there’s the ability to communicate with clients via e-mail “instead of playing phone tag with them,” said O’Donnell, who has been in the travel industry for 15 years, including time spent with Doug Fox Travel.

And perhaps most importantly, the Internet has been a catalyst for travel agents to charge a consultant’s fee for their work, thanks, in large part, to airlines’ cutting commission as they focus their attention on online ticket sales.

That fee has changed the way consumers view travel agents, O’Donnell said.

“When you’re paying a fee for somebody, there’s a higher level of expectation of what you’re going to get, and I think it’s great,” she said, “because then the agent or the tour-reservation person or the cruise-reservation person has a heavier responsibility. But they also have a perception of professionalism that just wasn’t really there before.

“And it’s a field where you have to know a heck of a lot, so it’s nice to be recognized for that a little bit more,” she said.

Along with a consultant’s fee, travel agencies have had to retool their business strategy away from reliance on selling plane tickets to stay competitive in the Internet age, O’Donnell and local agents said.

“Agencies that are going to make it are going to have to focus on doing (travel) packages and cruises,” said Melanie Sperry, owner of Canyon Park Travel in Bothell.

Tour companies and cruises are still giving good commissions, Sperry said, and the number of corporate travel trips have dwindled as bigger corporations install in-house travel agents.

Besides, such leisure packages, whether they are four-week tours of Europe or a Caribbean cruise, play to a travel agent’s expertise: intimate knowledge of a region’s culture and geography, as well as its hotels, restaurants and recreational opportunities.

That’s knowledge travel agents often collect firsthand, as they travel to various destinations, tour cruise liners and stay at hotels as part of their job.

Sperry, for instance, sends her agents out on as many “familiarization trips” as she can.

“We’ve got a lot of experience here — 85-plus years experience (combined),” she said.

Such experience is something the Internet can’t provide, and it comes in handy if a person is going to spend a substantial amount of money on a trip, O’Donnell said.

“Even if you’ve traveled a lot before, it’s a real nice resource to know you can go to somebody and say, ‘This is something I’m thinking about; tell me if I’m missing anything.’ Or, “Are there better deals that I can get?’ Because often on the Internet, you can’t tell if you’re getting the best deal,” she said, noting AAA member rates and senior citizen rates, among others, that may or may not be posted.

Along with being a resource, the travel agent acts as the buffer between clients and airlines, hotels and the like, said Sandy Nichols, owner of First Travel and Cruise in Everett.

“The positive thing about going with a travel agency is that when you buy a ticket on the Internet, it is nonchangeable, nonrefundable,” she said. “With a travel agent, you are able to change tickets with the airline for a fee.”

“We are the middle person to help steer (clients) in the right direction,” Sperry agreed. “If there are problems, we can take care of the problem.”

The customer-service aspect of the travel agency industry was only emphasized by the aftermath of Sept. 11, when flights across the country were canceled suddenly, O’Donnell said.

“A lot of people who hadn’t booked with travel professionals were stranded places and were calling and saying, ‘Can you still help me? I’m stuck here,’” she said, noting that while the airlines did allow cancellations without a penalty for a period of time, the actions of travel agents “really showed that customer service is the most important thing we can offer to our clients.”

And in the months that followed, that level of customer service continued, with travel agents taking to the skies and the seas to experience the new security, the extra time at the airports and any other new inconveniences, said Penny Clark, co-owner of Travel Time in Everett.

“After we saw for ourselves that traveling felt safe and the added security was worth the wait, we were able to ease our clients’ fears by answering questions with firsthand knowledge,” she said.

“I really think that what we’re selling is our professional knowledge as travel consultants and our customer-service skills,” O’Donnell said.

Besides, planning and researching a trip through Europe is a lot more enjoyable than selling plane seats.

“Airline ticketing is just not that entertaining,” she said.

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