Travel agents: What’s the point?

Posted by Miss Travel on March 23rd, 2008. Filed under air travel, technology.

What’s the point of travel agencies? I’ve been buying tickets online for years. It’s cheaper, faster, and I never have to worry about someone getting the dates wrong. But I just noticed the little travel agent shop on the corner from my office is still open. Are there really still enough internet-o-phobes to keep them in business?

— Jason

There’s no question the travel business has seen drastic changes since the emergence of the web. And you’re right: These days, anyone who can click a mouse and find the number on their credit card can buy a ticket to Shanghai from the comfort of their own basement at three o’clock in the morning. But travel agents do a whole lot more than selling simple round-trip tickets, and they always have.

Unlike yourself, many travelers don’t know exactly where they want to go. They just know what they want it to be like (”where can I go that’s a 4-hour flight from Chicago, has white sand beaches, and won’t cost more than $1000 for a week?”) and they’re relying on the pro to fill in the blanks.

Sure, for people who enjoy researching their own destinations, that sounds weird, but it’s just like anything else that you could do but might prefer to leave to an expert sometimes — changing your spark plugs, painting the house, or pulling that throbbing wisdom tooth.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the travel badass scale, there are some tickets that it’s almost impossible to buy without going through a travel agent. Sure, Expedia can sell you the round-trips from Dallas to Salt Lake City all day long. But try to book a Star Alliance round-the-world fare online and see how far you get (emailing a travel agent doesn’t count).

Similarly, the web sellers only let you buy the routings that their systems consider reasonable. Sometimes you really want that extra stop in Philadelphia so you can hit the food court and punish your heart with a cheese steak. Or maybe you want to get one segment of your next trip on Northwest instead of United so you can hit elite frequent flyer status. If it doesn’t come up that way in the search results, you’re out of luck… unless you go to a travel agency.

Ironically, in the early days of the web, it used to be possible to do many more of these things online, using a much-lamented system called EasySabre which put the full power of a travel agent’s terminal in the hands of anyone with a home PC. To the continuing chagrin of many frequent travelers, EasySabre got absorbed into Travelocity and then disappeared. So in some ways, travel agents are more important now than they were when web shopping was in its infancy.