How to Become a Successful Travel Agent from Home

If you’ve ever wondered how to become a travel agent from home, chances are you have a passion for travel and enjoy helping people experience the vacation of a lifetime. And while travelers have increasingly relied on the Internet to research and book their own travel, there has been a resurgence of people who desire a personal touch that can save both time and money. Consider the following statistics from Dream Vacations:

• The average time it takes to book a vacation is five hours, not including research.
• On average, travel agents save clients $452.
• Baby Boomers love to travel–and, in the U.S., more than 10,000 people retire every day.
• 67 new cruise ships will debut between 2019 and 2025.

In today’s economy, becoming a home-based travel agent requires you to start your own business, join a host agency, or invest in a franchise. There are pluses and minuses to each of these.

• If you do choose to run your own independent travel agency business, you will be responsible for developing your own website, marketing and advertising, travel booking systems, and business insurance costs—to name a few. You will also be responsible for generating all of your own leads and managing all of the business aspects of your business.
• Franchising provides yet another pathway to becoming a successful travel agent from home. Although joining a franchise does require an initial investment that includes a franchise fee, as well as other up-front costs, it also provides you with brand recognition, built-in lead generation programs, and proven systems that process both travel bookings and payments. But who you are anchored to can either float your home-based business or sink it. It’s important to talk to agents from travel franchises you might be interested in joining to better learn how commissions are paid out, how much support you receive from the corporate office, and what types of perks you will be able to offer your customers as a result of being part of a larger franchise.