Who Is A Travel Agent?
by Barkha Pahuja SEO/WriterA travel agent is the one whose main focus is to arrange a travel
for the end client such as individuals, groups, corporations on
behalf of suppliers namely, hotels, airlines, car rentals, cruise
lines, railways, travel insurance, package tours. A travel agent’s
major job responsibility lies in making the travel planning process
easy for the clients in addition to providing consultation services
and entire travel packages.
What Are The Types Of Travel
Agents?
Below are the two types of travel agents:
• Retail
Travel Agency
A retail travel agency is an agency that sells the
products of the tourist directly to the public on the behalf of the
products suppliers and gets commissions as a part of return. There
are two ways in which packages are sold, one on a commission basis
and the second one is by marking up the price.
If we go by some
expert definitions of what a retail travel agency is then as per
Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), “a business that performs the
following functions: quotes fares, rates, make reservations, arrange
travel tickets and accommodation, arrange travel insurance, foreign
currency, documents and accepts payments” is known as a retail
travel agent.
On the other hand, according to SARC (1967), ”retail
travel agency business consists of the activities involved in selling
tourism products/services directly to the tourists and performs
normal functions such as issuing air tickets, making accommodation
and transportation reservation, providing specialized services, and
accepting and making payments.”
• Wholesale Travel
Agency
Wholesale travel agency is an agency whose strong foothold
is in organizing package tours, which are marketed to the
customers/tourists through the network of a retail travel agency or
directly to the prospective clients. To be more precise, a wholesale
travel agency purchases tourists product mechanisms in the bulk and
designs tour package.
What Does a Tour Operation do?
Following
are the functions of a tour operator:
• Travel Information
•
Itinerary Preparation
• Airline Ticketing and Reservation
•
Tour Packaging and Costing
• Reservation
• Travel
Insurance
• Currency Services
• Organisation of
Conference/Conventions
What is the difference between Travel Agent
and Tour Operator?
Below are the differences between a travel
agent and a tour operator:
• While tour operators are like
wholesalers, on the other hand, travel agents are the retailers.
•
A tour operator is such an organisation or a firm that purchases
individual travel components from the suppliers and then sell it on
their own price tag to the public or through middlemen.
• Also,
a tour operator makes the package holidays; the travel agents are the
ones who sell them on.
• Having a full knowledge of
destinations, climate changes, modes of travel, accommodation as well
as other areas is the one who is known as a travel agent. Basically,
a travel agent is the one who acts on behalf of product
providers/principals and gets a commission in return.
• There
is no denying the fact that a tour operator taking up the bulk of the
responsibilities and his income is much more than a travel
agent.
There are many Domestic Travel Agent in Gujarat and Tour
Operators in Jamnagar and one can completely rely on them for the
best deals!
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Created on Feb 21st 2020 03:57. Viewed 382 times.