Happening
A very interesting point of view, and I have no doubt very valid and true. unfortunately travel agents have in the past provided,shall we say a tarnished service ,which will take a long time to recover from.They also suffer,not entirely untrue, of being tied to their owners and therefore not independant enough.

The internet might be an imperfect tool but it has a big following. you can book what you want and do it when its convenient to you ie when the shops are shut, which is the main reason the internet has become the `tool` of choice. True the internet might not be cheapest but it does allow you to compare prices via a wide number of suppliers, quickly and easily.
You ask for deals that a travel agent couldnt get..Heres one i have just booked ,accomodation where and when I want it in the canaries, later this year, via a private owner at a very reasonable price. Sure not entirely without risk but there again getting out of bed in a morning is a risk is it not, its just the degree that we choose.
Put shortly the Tour Operators have a stinking reputation and sadly the High St agents are tarred with that brush. But seriously best of luck..

I'm not sure if paying in cash is a huge advantage. Say the travel agency goes broke (it could happen) I would still pay a travel agent by credit card to get the added protection that this offers, and to save walking round the high street with a wad of cash!

Sorry happening, I've got to disagree with you, at least a little, on this one!

I believe there are a lot of cases where booking via the web is cheaper than going into a travel agents. Admittedly a lot of shops are now matching deals found on the internet, but if I were to go into a shop without searching the web first and having no deal/price for the travel agency to match, the cheaper holiday would be the one found on line. Thats usually my experience anyway.

What the travel agents can rely on is having the experience and expertise but, with sites such as this one, information and first hand accounts from people who have 'been there and done it' are readily available if you are to book online and make choosing the right resort and accomodation easy providing you do the research first.

I've booked holidays both over the web and through various shops over the last few years and will no doubt continue to go to where i can get the cheapest deal!

This year, having been to a couple of travel agents pricing up, that was over the web. Last week of June to Lindos, Rhodes. Self catering, 3 star accomodation with pool, day time flights, pre-booked seats, inflight meals, taxis to and from the airport. £580 for the two of us.

Steve

I can't remember the last time I went into a travel agents. I have to be honest I find it much much easier, cheaper and more informative to sit at my PC and book my holidays. I have booked with big companies, little companies and DIY and not had a problem.

I do however think that there is room for both, internet and travel agencies, its 2007 there should be a choice. If there is a bit of competition maybe the prices will reflect it?

Sarah

I must admit that I like to go on the web and search at leasure with a cup of coffee for a holiday that meets our requirements, then price it with as many online companies as possible then go to a travel agent and book it.

We used the same independant travel agent for 15 years booking 2 or 3 holidays a year with them and even after the internet became widely used they would still not just match but beat the price that I got online and also gave us free insurance.
They were happy to let me pay for my holiday as and when I wanted to as long as it was paid before we went, on the rare couple of occasions when something went wrong they were very happy to help sort it with the tour operator, they willing gave me information, recommendations and advice and as much time as we wanted.

Sadly like so many small independant agents they closed last year, and we only have a couple of the major tour operators high street outlets now.
We went in to use one (TUI) last year after doing all my research online and finding the exact holiday that we wanted only for the the agent to search through all his own companies holidays, offer us dates that we couldn't go on, locations that we didn't want to go to and all at prices that I nearly fell of the chair at. I kept telling him the exact company to check but he insisted that he had to try them last as he had other holidays to check first
We got up and left after 1hr 20mins and he still hadn't checked the other operators holidays so he lost a sale and a chance to get return customers.
We travelled 30mins to the nearest independant agent (Travelchoice) told them what we wanted, lady searched system found holiday we asked for free insurance if booked, told that was Ok, deal done.

We had holiday booked at less than internet price (agent was slightly less than net price ?) got free insurance, was in and out of travel agent in 20 minutes and they will be getting our custom in future when we are booking our 2 or 3 holidays a year.

IMHO if you can find a good travel agent who is willing to spend a little time to listen to you and work with you (not against you) to find a suitable holiday that you want, give advice and be slightly flexible on pricing they are the ideal way to book a holiday and you will still have some face to face contact if you need it.

Graham

i also prefer to use the internet and have never had a problem so far and always found the prices cheaper, and i go abroad about 4-5 times a year, last year i got a good price off eclipse direct and decided to give the travel agent a chance knowing the price i had been quoted i went into travel hypermarket that belongs to first choice and therefore eclipse, but she couldnt match the price never mind beat it and told me they couldnt quote prices from eclipse, hence going home and booking it over the internet.

the only problems i have had are booking with a travel agents, 18 mths ago i booked my wedding holiday with lunn poly to lykia world as it was then, paid the deps for my family and a friends family, received lunn poly confirmation in the post, a week later got a call price from lunn poly the price wrong i either had to pay another £1200 or the hol would be cancelled, they did nothing to help me despite going into lunn poly, speaking to their head office etc, the holiday got cancelled as i wasnt prepared to pay all that extra and they wouldnt even give me any discount off another holiday, absolutely dreadful service, so i did a diy to lykia and got it a good price myself. then last year i booked an easter holiday with thomas cook and 3 weeks before departure my holiday was moved forward a week which we couldnt take so therefore i lost the holiday again i went on internet and did a diy and got a good price. so thats 2 bad experiences ive had with travel agents in less than 2 years, its diy or internet packages for me from now on !!!

i will get a price off the web go along to my local travel agents as long as they match the price i will book.
there is only 1 travel agents i will not use due to bad staff, trying to get cumstomers to pay more than needed and totaly unhelpfull if i have had any problems.

Thanks for all the replies - its just interesting to see how peoples minds work nowadays. Ive been doing this job since leaving school 20 years ago so never had to bother about shopping around travel agencies to get a good deal so its nice to see what different peoples priorities are.
I can see that some people experience bad service in some travel agents and even get the pushy one tour operator one brand service without shopping around other operators.....Thats the way the multiples work as really now they are only distribution centres for their own products.
But all I can say is dont write off agents totally - I accept theres nothing better than sitting at home when the telly is pants, surfing the net with a cold beer and its been a great provider of insipration for many.
We are still here, we can still haggle and the old school staff, although maybe a bit "robotised" by our head offices, still have the core values of what a travel agent is all about, provide good impartial service, out to give the customer a good deal, and of course make a bit of money on the side - hey why not eh??

I always book teletext holidays but last October I decided to look on the internet.I found the hotel I wanted to go to on Med Hotels,the flight with XL,and the transfers with hotel transfer.com.I havent the confidence to book on-line so I went to our local independant travel agent who are now the largest independant travel agent in the country (Hays Travel) and they booked it for me for the DIY price.The independant agent will put a holiday together for you whereas the ones owned by the big holiday companies tend to push their holidays.

Apart from just once, we have always used Travel Agents. The one time that we didnt, we booked over the telephone, it was a complete nightmare. We asked for a family resort as we were a family of 12 (including grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters and two children aged 2 and 3. We ended up in a club 18/30 apartment. We tried to change the holiday but they would only offer us accommodation which meant paying over £500 per person more and really couldnt be bothered with us so we ended up keeping the holiday and having not such a good time. We couldnt wait to get home for some peace and quiet !!

This year, I have looked on the websites, priced up a holiday and then went to the local branch of the holiday company. where they were more than happy to price match for us.

I prefer the face to face contact of a travel agent as you can always judge by their responses what a holiday/resort/accommodation is going to be like and 9 out of 10 times get an honest opinion.

I used to work (for a short time) as a Travel Agent for one of the main agents who also are a big Tour Operator. We would certainly match (not beat) the web price for our own company (only if the Customer asks) but with other companies, ie Thomsons, Airtours etc we could not match as on most occassions we would make a loss on the holiday.

It was soul destroying chasing your enquiries only to find they had booked on line. Most of the time you had spent ages with the customer, given them all the information then they go and book it themselves. However I cannot blame them as I would do exactly the same.

Also depending which Agent you go to, their priority would be to sell their own holidays ie Thomsons would push their own Thomson holidays. We used to be questioned from Head Office as to why we sold "non family" holidays!!! We also had to have a good reason. I hated the fact my hands were tied which meant I didn't always give the customer the best deal, but the deal the Company wanted me to give!! it's very cut throat out there.

TAs are also very poorly paid and in my case commission was only paid on holidays sold from a "family" TO. As a result of the low pay, staff turnover was very high therefore experience was completely lacking.

I LOVE researching my holidays on line and have no problem booking them in the comfort of my home. I disagree the internet is not safe. Over the last 4 years I have purchased things like a Washing Machine, Plasma TV, furniture etc on line. Like a holiday I would ALWAYS make sure the firm I am making my purchase from is reputable and do thorough research.

Happening,
You are spot on. I too am a travel agent and face this sort of converstion with customers every single day as I'm sure you do. I saw the feature on GMTV and was actually quite relieved that for once they were advising people to visit the travel agent and not using it as an opportunity to slate us.
I have been at work today and had a customer call me for a price on a holiday she found on the Thomas Cook website. I priced it up on our system and with the discounts we are currently offering was working out approx #30pp cheaper, without having to do a pricematch.
There are many tour operators out there that offer customers the same prices weather its on their website by phone or through the travel agent and in many cases the travel agent will offer a discount so you would be getting a cheaper holiday anyway!!
Its so frustrating when you get a customer into your shop and asks you for all your help and advice on finding them a holiday you do all the work think of everyway you can to get them to book and then they go home and book it on the internet. Its such a waste of our time when you could be booking loyal customers and people that actually appreciate our assistance.
Give travel agents a chance after all we have a job to do.

Mrs Chivas here!

We found our holiday on the Thomson website but went to the high street travel agents to book as we wanted to haggle a bit on the price - we always get free ins and often the excess waiver paid as well.

The first stop was Thomson where an enthusiastic girl said she do us a deal but the manager refused to do anything but match the web price. Funny I thought the ad on TV was "web prices on the high street". Hmmm web prices matched if you ask it seems!

Co-op Travel - not bad service but they only price match selected holidays and no longer give free insurance.

First Choice - woman on the desk uninterested may be able to match web price but nothing else.

Lunn Poly - friendly guy said he would love to deal but they made little profit on Thomson hols. Said he could do great things on their own brand hols. As we were set on the hol he said to try the other Thomson outlet in town and push as they would have discount leeway.

Second Thomson - busiest shop of all. Told the woman what we wanted and she was sat next to manager. She tried to say she couldn't discount so we made moves to move on to the next travel agent. She asked manager and manager agreed. Holiday at web price, free insurance and excess waiver. Saved me finding and paying for insurance on the Internet. Overheard the manager telling the saleswoman that she was glad we were booking as they had only taken £5k that day and other stores had double that so maybe we went at a lucky time!

Overall I found the customer service overall from travel agents as barely satisfactory. Once they knew I had an Internet price they seemed to switch off - does discounting affect their bonuses? Thomson, for all their ads, quoted a higher than web price on both occasions. Price-beating on holidays seems to have died a death on the high street. I got the deal I wanted but only after visiting a few stores (didn't get to Going Places and the Hypermarket) maybe I'm lucky in that my town has enough agents that their is a chance one will need the sale.

Moral of the story - check high street and Internet and go for the best deal.

Chivas69. To answer your question re does discounting affect their bonus? The answer is yes. Well it certainly was the TA I worked. The shop had targets, the individual had targets. Your target was "profit" so that is why they are reluctant to discount. The other side is, if you don't meet your targets, questions are asked not only from your shop but from your Regional/Area Manager as well. I had quite good sales but alot of it is down to luck and getting the right customer. One of my colleagues was not so lucky and was not meeting their target so was sent away for an "underperformers" meeting with the Regional Manager. How demoralising and demotivating. That is the reason I left, as I thought that could quite easily have been me. Also the TO which was part of the "family" where I worked did not fly out of our local airport so that made things much more difficult and own holidays alot harder to sell.

The TA I worked for, you only earned "incentives" on selling "family" and when I say family I mean selling holidays from the TO that come under their umbrella. Also different TO offer different percentages of commission to the shop. This ranged from between 10 and 20%

To summarise it depends on the TA you are in, what % commission they will earn as to how much/if they will discount.

hi mrs chivas you say that you went into the travel agents and when you mentioned a web price they switched off thats prob because most operators keep cutting their commission and only pay on the basic costing and not fuel supps,ticket on departure,etc so a web price has usually taken off most of the commission,hence why the shop is prob not that interested! ie thomson hols have cut the commission paid to us where i work to 5%, so a family hol for 4 at 1000 pays the grand sum of £50 if out of that £50 the shop had to discount to web price for example of £960 theyve made £10 which isnt worth the paperwork and time.
where i work in a call centre don't know if this applies to our shops but we have to make a profit on booking of£25 per head shorthaul and £50 long haul
the idea of the internet holiday websites though is so customers do it themselves,hence saving on overheads!
just out of interest i wonder if people do this when buying a washer, tv etc from the major stores??

Interesting debate. I've had good experiences of both TA and internet.

Last year we used a specialist travel agent for our trip to China. I cannot praise them highly enough and for once I didn't even bother to price anything up on the internet (most unusual for me!). They asked lots of questions about our interests and what we wanted to see. They came up with a tailor made 3 week holiday that was indeed our trip of a lifetime. They took all the hassle away, arranged our guides and our sorted our visas.

Last week I booked a holiday for this July. I knew where I wanted to go and with whom so I priced it onlne and them called my local travel agent. Sadly they couldn't match the price and or offer me free transport to my local airport as the company I'd picked (Olympic) wasn't one of the 'chosen' tour ops. I booked online.
The same week I priced up a holiday for my parents with Thomson to go to Rhodes in one of their 'Gold' hotels. It was just over £1500. Portland (who are part of the Thomson group) could do it for £1389. They went into the agents armed with this info and the agent couldn't match the price and even told them to book it online as it was a good deal.

Generally, if I'm going on a city break I always book DIY as invariably we use the low cost airlines and book a hotel on the internet but if I'm after a package I will always see what the TA can offer.

yes i thoroughly agree with you, i've found a brilliant travel agent near me and nothing is too much trouble and they've beaten the net for prices on numerous occasions, i hope there is a renaissance for travel agents, have you noticed if there is? I hope so!

I haven't been in a travel agents in 6 years, dont see the point. Even if they can price match, i would rather book it myself online. I spend ages looking for holidays and flights for different people and for ourselves and know the sites to look on. Research is all part of it, I love it!

I have found Thomson teletext are cheaper than their website.