A travel agency in Penang, Malaysia.

Travel agencies sell travel products (e.g. flights, hotel nights, cruise nights, insurance) on behalf of the providers of such products. They organize individual or group travel for their clients, at the very least the combination of transportation and accommodation, or an all-inclusive package holiday.

While online booking and aggregators have disrupted the travel business, travel agencies still dominate some markets, such as business travel, Round the world flights, cruise ships, resort and theme park vacations, honeymoon travel, activity-based trips (photography tours, religious pilgrimages, etc), multi-stop tours, and adventurous journeys such as safaris.

Understand

Travel agencies have been around since the 19th century. A travel agent is usually a good option for a journey which extends beyond a traveller's previous experience of nature, culture, language or low-income countries.

Although most agencies are willing to take on most regular bookings, many agents specialise in particular types of travel, budget ranges or destinations. It can be better to use an agent who frequently books similar trips to yours. Take a look at what trips the agent is promoting, whether on a website or in a shop window. Some agents may mainly sell complete package trips pre-planned by their head office or another agent; at the other extreme some agents may be prepared to plan a complete trip in detail for a client, including theatre bookings etc.

You may engage with a travel agent by calling into a physical shop, or by phoning either the shop or a central call center. If you are booking a straightforward package, then you may book it online using the agent's website.

Pros and cons

Much online advice about travel agencies is provided by the business itself, and might have a bias toward using a travel agency.

• Saving time before the journey. While some people see the planning as a pleasure in itself, others might prefer to leave the effort to a travel agent.
• They may offer better deals for group or corporate travel.
• An international travel agent can be assumed to handle language and culture barriers between the client and the destination.
• The travel agent's deal usually provides some travel insurance perks itself. They may have different terms for cancellation – by you or because of bankruptcy or some force majeure – than a direct booking with an airline or hotel would have.
• A travel agent's knowledge about the destination is usually up to date, including the risk factors and information from travel advisories.
• An established travel agent could be more reliable. They can be expected to select suppliers with a good track record. If you have complaints, the law might give you a stronger case against a domestic travel agency, than you would have against a foreign carrier or resort. A travel agent might also be more dependent on goodwill than more anonymous service providers. If you travel with a legacy airline and sleep at an international hotel chain, the opposite could however be true.
• A travel agent might offer a credit plan for later payment.
• You are less likely to make an expensive mix-up with a travel agent – for instance booking a flight to Birmingham in England and an hotel in Birmingham in Alabama; or booking the wrong date.
• A travel agent can help to re-arrange your itinerary if it becomes disrupted during your trip – if airline flight times change or weather disrupts travel. Depending on the cause of the disruption and the consumer protection rules in the country where you book, the travel agent may have to bear some of the costs of these re-arrangements.
• A travel agent can be helpful in dealing with visa bureaucracy.
• A travel agent might be able to book airtickets that involve changing flights between different airlines that do not have a codesharing agreement, which you generally cannot do when booking with the airline directly.

There are some downsides.

• In most cases, a travel agency is more expensive than if you had made all the bookings yourself. They can levy a fixed fee or a percentage of the original price.
• Flights on low-cost carriers or stays at budget hotels are not always offered or supported.
• You will need to contact the travel agency to make amendments or special requests for your trip as the ability to do this with the airline or hotel directly may not be possible. This is a problem if the request is made outside the travel agent’s business hours.
• A travel agent might have an exclusive deal with an airline alliance or a hotel chain, which limits their options.
• Travel agents might not offer the precise itinerary you are looking for, or only as a tailor-made choice at a markup.
• As a client of a travel agency, you might miss out on loyalty bonus score from airlines and hotels. They may also not be in a position to process award travel redemptions on your behalf.
• Travel agents may have difficulty in booking some aspects of a trip – a small hotel may not appear in the agent's booking system, or a local express train may be quicker than the bus connection that they can book.

See also

• Aggregators; a more modern method to compare transportation and accommodation.
• Budget travel
• Guided tours
• Organizing a group trip