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Becoming a Home-Based
Travel Agent, Part 3:
What Is A Home-Based Travel Agent?
Copyright © Kelly
Monaghan,
http://www.HomeTravelAgency.com
Broadly speaking, a
home-based travel agent is anyone engaged in the
marketing and
selling of travel products from a home office. That can cover
a wide
variety of different types of home-based travel agents.
However, in the travel
industry and more specifically in the
travel distribution industry, the term "home-based travel
agent" is most often used to refer to someone who . . .
1) works out of a home
office as an outside sales
representative for a bonded, accredited ARC/IATAN travel
agency, usually referred to as the "host agency,"
2) works as a reseller
of products of various travel
suppliers, without involving a host agency, or
3) does a bit of both.
Most home-based agents fall into this
third category.
The home-based travel
agent finds, qualifies, and books the
customer; the host agency prints the tickets (if any) and
serves as the conduit between the home-based agent and the
travel supplier whose product the home-based agent is
selling. The home-based travel agent and the host agency
share the commissions paid by travel suppliers according to a
negotiated percentage split that reflects (or should reflect)
the amount of work and effort expended by each party in
making the booking happen.
By definition (as well
as by contract), the home-based travel
agent is an independent contractor, which means that he or
she has a great degree of freedom as far as determining how
and with whom to do business.
That means that some
home-based travel agents function simply
as referral agents,
funneling business to a travel agency but not
handling any of the
booking details themselves.
Some home-based travel
agents bypass host agencies
altogether. One way to do this is to become a "cruise-only"
agency. Another way to do this is to specialize in
condominium vacations, a niche that has been underserved by
traditional travel agencies and which is more than happy to
deal directly with home-based travel agents. Other home-based
travel
agents simply market a limited number of travel
products and form direct relationships with individual travel
suppliers whose products they represent.
Some home-based travel
agents specialize in forms of travel
that have developed distribution channels outside the
traditional storefront travel agency distribution channel.
For example, some people are very content to market
educational tours that not only offer extremely attractive
pricing but allow the tour organizer (the home-based travel
agent) to travel free and earn a stipend (a sort of
commission) as well. Organizers of student travel, many of
whom are full-time students, are another example of this
approach.
Home-based travel
agents, of whatever description or level of
sophistication, can work either full-time or part-time or
only occasionally. That's because the very nature of being an
independent contractor is that no one can tell you when to
work, how to work, or how hard to work. There are home-based
travel
agents who earn pin money, home-based travel agents who
earn a tidy
part-time income, home-based travel agents who bring
down a
substantial middle-class income, and home-based travel agents who
earn six-figure incomes.
As you can see, there
are so many variations and combinations
that it is difficult to define the "typical" home-based
travel agent. This means that virtually anyone can be a home-based travel agent, on their own terms and at their own pace,
creating the type of home-based travel marketing business
that makes sense for them.
But is being a
home-based travel agent for you? We’ll consider
that question in the next lesson. Lesson
Four
This mini-course on
becoming a home-based travel agent is
brought to you by the Home-Based Travel Agent Resource Center
and The Intrepid Traveler, publisher of a comprehensive home
study course for home-based travel agents.
For more information,
visit
today.
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