How to start your own travel agency

How to start your own travel agency

You can implement various business ideas in the field of entertainment, organize leisure activities, develop and implement all kinds of sightseeing and tourist tours and at the same time get a good income by creating your own travel agency. In this article, we will talk about how to open a travel agency from scratch.

People are looking forward to the next vacation, and its time will not be wasted if you radically change the environment, touch something exotic, learn something new. And what can provide such an opportunity? Travel only! This is where travel agencies appear, which act as intermediaries between a person’s dream to relax and the fact of achieving the goal.

Opportunities to earn money in the tourism business

To understand how travel agencies make money, you need to understand the basic terms. So, in the tourism market, there are two types of providers that provide services related to travel:

Tour operators developing and implementing tours

Agencies that cooperate with the former by concluding an agency agreement and selling ready-made tours

Thus, travel agencies are the link between the operator and the tourist. Their profit consists of a certain percentage - a commission from the sale of tours. As a rule, the remuneration is from 5 to 15%. The activities of travel agencies can have different formats, it all depends on what initial capital and ambitions the businessman has. It is important here to be a realistic optimist in order to reasonably assess the possibilities, but with enthusiasm to believe in success. Considering the main options for doing business and generating income will help with the answer to the question “how to open your own travel agency?”.

Travel agency at home

This is the easiest way to get started in this field. It does not require investment. What does it take to open a travel agency at home? Just a computer or laptop, the presence of the Internet, phone and printer. Communication with customers occurs through the network, telephone, as well as personal meetings at home or in a cafe.

However, there are some nuances here. It is quite difficult to find clients, because people in our country trust more, so to speak, office workers. It is psychologically important for them to feel a business environment in a neutral room, rather than home comfort. Public places are also perceived ambiguously.

Work online

Currently, sales on the Internet are very common, so you can consider the online organization of the tourism business as quite promising. What do you need to open an online travel agency? Initially, you need to create an informative and attractive website. Such work can be done on its own, if the necessary skills are present, or ordered by a specialist. Learn more about how to create your own online store. The site should allow a potential client to independently choose the tours of interest, book them, purchase tickets and pay for tours. You also need quality software. You can order development here https://www.dataart.com/industry/online-travel-solutions

Such an online agency does not require large financial costs, reduces the need for employees, simplifies the sale of tours, and also allows you to work anywhere where the Internet is available. The disadvantages of this format include the inability to sell tours to countries with a visa regime, since a personal meeting is required here to sign documents and provide photographs.

Advice for beginners

In conclusion, I would like to draw the attention of all those who are just planning to launch their own agency that the tourism business is characterized by the influence of seasonality. The recession most often occurs in January and February. In addition, the crisis that has been observed in Russia over the past few years is also affecting consumer behavior. Under these conditions, we can recommend that novice entrepreneurs constantly analyze the market, study demand, and respond quickly to changes in the external environment. In addition, it is worth paying due attention to domestic tourism, which, according to experts, has quite a serious potential.