Travel agents focus on service to compete with Web

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), May 7, 2007 by Ginger Shepherd

At architecture firm Cyntergy AEC, bosses travel a lot. And for the company's staff, there are benefits to using a travel agency over online services to book a trip themselves.

With the onset of the Internet, the travel agency business has been forced to returned to its roots: service and customer relations.

"Anyone can book a car and hotel," World Travel President Alex Eaton said.

And that's what travelers are doing on the Web. So much so that the number of agencies, which grew from 16,000 in the 1970s to more than 40,000 by 1985, is back down to about 20,000 since the birth of the Internet. It's no wonder - Texas-based Travelocity, part of Sabre Holdings, is the nation's sixth-largest travel agency, reporting 2006 bookings of $10.1 billion, a 35-percent leap over the prior year. Arch rival Orbitz, with sister site CheapTickets, had combined 2006 bookings of $10 million. The industry's largest online agency, Expedia, booked $15.5 billion worth of travel in 2006. And that doesn't count other agency sites or the sites run by individual airline, hotel, cruise, tour and car rental companies.

Local agencies claim they trump their online competitors with superior service. Eaton said having a travel agent means the customer has a person to call when problems arise like missing a connecting flight or other delay. He said the agent can contact a hotel and let them know there will be a later check-in, or let a car service know that the client is behind schedule. World Travel plans to bring a tracking system online for its business customers that will help the agency know of issues in the traveler's itinerary and automatically notify the customer.

Cyntergy's Mindy Lawrence said her boss once was stuck in Cayman Islands and it was the travel agency - Service Travel of Tulsa - that was able to solve the problem and get him back.

"She was all over it," Lawrence said.

Going to bat for customers became very important after the Sept. 11 attacks and even after Hurricane Katrina when no one could get to online travel sites, said Richard Kahn, president of Kahn Travel Communications.

"Those live travel agents provided the alternatives to get their customers to safety when they were stranded," he said.

People using travel agents want value since they are paying a fee, said Greg Spears, senior vice president at Spears Travel.

Spears said customers get that value with local offices because the agents are typically experienced, able to provide suggestions and put together complex itineraries.

"We have people say they plan 12 trips in a year," Eaton said. "We plan 12 trips in an hour."

For companies, there is value in not having to do it themselves. Lawrence said a big reason Cyntergy uses an agency is because the staff doesn't have the time to research deals online. The agent has the tools and can do it far more quickly.

Corporate customers account for 80 percent of World Travel's business.

"It's our bread and butter," Eaton said.

His company's business travel division is housed separately from vacation planners and phones are answered by a person, not an automated system. Literally, he said, a telephone operator will get up and find the travel agent a business client needs.

Some businesses don't book online and don't use outside travel agencies. State Farm has an internal agency that individuals in the company can use to arrange trips, said John Wisecaver, a spokesman for the insurance company. When there are large groups traveling, he said, a meeting planner makes the arrangements.

The move toward more service is a swing back to the industry's roots. In the 1960s, travel agents served more as consultants than booking agents, Kahn said. Local agencies often follow up with clients after a trip. That information can be used to make the client's next trip better, or to help another customer.

He said the role of travel agents changed as more people began to travel with the onset of large jets. Agents focused on booking airlines, hotels and other suppliers, collecting a commission from those suppliers.

Now a client gets information for a trip online and then the travel agent can help refine it, Eaton said.

Travel agents are again consultants, not just a booking agent, Kahn said.

And the business is still good. He said in 2006, agencies remitted $77.8 billion in sales through the Airlines Reporting Corp. and that was the highest-volume year since 2000.

He said the record sales volume happened as accredited retail agencies fell to 19,026, down 5 percent for the year.

"People still want service," Spears said.