Is An Independent Travel Agency A Good Business?
Believe it or not. One of the best ways to create a passive income stream on the Internet is to help others traveling around the world. The Independent travel agency is now a long-term career for lots of people who love the lifestyle. Independent travel agencies can make traveling more convenient for customers as they help eliminate all hassles associated with buying tickets, and choosing an affordable package, etc.
While there are other ways to make a good living on the Internet, an independent travel agency has the lowest start-up cost among other online businesses. Instead of selling physical products and manage the inventory, the travel agency has much lower overhead cost. However, starting an independent travel agency is a bit of a mixed bag for many people.
On the one hand, an independent travel agency can be quite economical to start, and you may often get away with a little upfront cost and limited staff. That being said, success is mainly dependent on identifying the best niche in a highly competitive market. Become a successful travel agency requires some hard work and patience. Hence, if you really want to be successful, you will have to put a good deal of effort and time into your branding, market research, and marketing. This article will show you how!
As a leader in providing a merchant account to the travel industry, we’ve seen many successful agents that dominate the market in their own niche. So are here to help you become one of them. First of all, the independent travel agency is considered one of the high-risk business on the Internet. So a rock-solid and stable merchant account for your agency to accept payment or process credit card are very important. It’s also the most important key to ensure your success because a merchant account is how you receive the money! Need a merchant account for your travel agency? You can simply apply now!
Now. Let’s learn how other travel agencies achieve the biggest profit goal. In general, there are 5 key questions to answer. Who, what, when, why and how.
#1: Who are you targeting?
Who is your targeted audience? This is the most important question to ask for any business. Without defining your paying customer, you will waste your money and energy selling to the wrong crowd. Finding your niche is important; this is often overlooked by many travel agencies startup entrepreneurs. Any easy way is to do a search on the internet and find out the hot trend in the travel industry.
- Where do people go?
- How do people travel? Train, Cruise, etc
- How long do people stay in one place?
- How many people travel together as a group?
- How much do they spend on traveling on average?
- How do people pay for their travel expense? By credit card, debit card, check or Paypal?
You may be surprised that #6 is specifically important. It is how you make the most profit by knowing how your customer pay and how you can increase your profit by using the right payment processing solution. This is also a key to distinguish you from other travel agency in terms of profit. Think outside of the box and find a good segment in the luxurious travel. People tend to pay more for less when it’s luxury!
#2: What are you selling?
Once you identify your target audience and knowing their travel habits, you can now decide the package to sell. Not all travel package are created equal. Don’t be fooled by the so-called All-In-One package, which combines the airfare, rental car, hotel stay, and amusement park admission. It makes your job easy, but it makes the travel harder to arrange. Because it may cause a chain reaction if one of the components fails to deliver. You will spend endless hours to rearrange them. Try to customize individual segment of the travel into their own piece. It may take a longer time to arrange, but they are usually more profitable to travel agency like yours.
One thing that a travel agency also sells is TRUST. Your customer will come back to buy more travel package from you because you’ve built a trust-worthy business to take their money and bring them the best travel experience. A solid payment solution is key to ensure the wonderful experience flow through the whole booking process. By providing many payment options, and protection on both your customer and your business, the over business profit will also increase.
#3: When is the best time to travel?
Timing and season make a huge difference in terms of making a profit for travel agency. Summertime is usually more expensive for travel, but it is also more competitive in terms of pricing. For people who have some money to spend, they tend to travel on the weekday or off-peak time. In other words, it is easier for you to arrange their travel and charge more for flexibility.
#4: Why become independent?
Don’t you hate to work for a big corporation? Don’t you love freedom while working as much as you like on your own schedule? Become an independent means you are your own boss. Your income is decided by the effort you put into the travel agency. Although you are taking all the risk to be your own boss, the return is usually much larger than working of other travel agency. Many successful independent travel agents work remotely while traveling around the world. All you need is a computer with Internet access, you can remotely manage your schedule and provide your customer with good services.
#5: How to become a successful travel agent?
Now you have identified the first 4 key components to operate an independent travel agency, it’s time to make it a successful business. There are takes that you need to prepare to ensure your long-term investment will generate the return. No matter what you, keep 3 things at the top priority. They are the key to make sure higher ROI (return on investment).
- Automation
- Lead Generation
- Stable Merchant Account
Independent travel agency business can potentially generate very good passive income. It means you can make money while you are sleeping. How? Internet and search engine is your best friend. All travel agencies will have a website. So do you. No matter where you build your website, make sure you capture the lead. The lead can come from search engines like Google, social media like Facebook or Instagram, but you have to capture them and convert them into a paid customer. Many travel agencies also use third-party travel data aggregator, affiliate program or wholesale travel package to create the website. However, you will have no control. We highly recommend you to create your own website and learn search engine optimization (SEO) for your travel agency.
Once you receive the lead (lead generation) on your website, you will kick start the automation process using third-party service like MailChimp to follow-up the lead and turn a cold lead into a hot lead.
After all, without getting paid means no business. You need a stable way to process payment to keep your business going. The travel agency business is considered a high-risk business due to the average ticket amount and higher dispute rate. It also often requires the customer to pay a deposit up-front. However, the customer may later decide to cancel the travel plan and ask for a refund. This type of transaction makes travel agency business a higher risk business. What you need is a reputable payment processor that enables you to process credit card, e-check, and debit card payment online and offline. This is where a travel agency merchant account comes to help you!
Applying for a travel agency merchant account is really straight forward. You simply click on the following button and our agent will reach out to you to help you! Let our merchant specialist help you with the industry best merchant account for travel agency.
