What
exactly is a
"home-based travel agent?"
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 works out of their home office as an
outside sales representative for a bonded, accredited ARC/IATAN
travel agency, usually referred to as the "host agency."
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.
For more information
on how to start up and succeed in a home-based travel agent business,
CLICK HERE. Or, if you are ready to order
our home study course, CLICK HERE.
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