Being a travel agent in 2024 is practically impossible because we are still in a state of a pandemic. Tourist travels aren’t allowed, so the authorities can stop the spreading of the coronavirus. But, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to book your next vacation now and travel in 2024 or 2024. Due to situations like this, pandemic causing a brand new economic crisis, traveling is the first thing people cut off to save money. Anyway staying home for almost a year is getting depressing and frustrating, so it might be the right time to explore your own state, visit beautiful places you have never considered visiting, some nature and mountains less crowded areas, and villas or apartments, respecting the safety measures.
Also, everybody needs (or wants) to work from home, so if you love traveling exploring, and organizing trips while staying at home this might be the right job for you.
If you want to become an agent who is organizing tours and who works from home, you need to follow some of these steps:
1. Finding an agency to be your host
Starting alone can be harder and time-consuming, while the agencies already have all the contacts for accommodations, car rentals, transportation, and clients. You can even have some basic training so you can easier adapt to the new job. Start from that point, and see how you will develop as a professional during the time.
2. What do you need?
You basically need the only phone, computer, or a laptop and a stable connection to the Internet, so you can start working. Then you need to do some planning and researching, decide whether you like to work independently or for/with a hosting agency. If you work independently you will need insurance, and in some states, you might need a license too. Our recommendation is to start with an agency, and if everything goes well, you will have enough time to become an independent agent, who can do all the job alone, and who is ready to be the best in their field.
3. Get an online course
In order to become a travel agent, no matter from home or at the agency, you need to have a course certificate and a license to do that job. There are a lot of skills you will have to learn and adapt because it’s not simply calling and booking, it’s more than that. A good agent should always know how to offer accommodations or even the places the tourists want to visit. This year, everything is online, including all of these courses, you can find on websites like courses.com.au, choose the one you like, and get ready to embrace your new career.
4. Make daily plans
In this job, you can’t plan things in advance. Today you will have ten clients, but the next day they can be less or more. It’s practically impossible to follow some pattern, but in general, you have to make a plan to work with the clients, set their appointments on online platforms, manage all the things they want and require, so you can prepare and send an offer to them. Also, all these things require some training and learning some basic things about marketing and business management. These skills will help you plan the day better, and be more efficient at work, even though you are working from home.
5. Learn about the options for promotion
If you work alone, even if you have support from an agency, you have to find a way how to promote your services. For example, you have to write down an initial contact list of the people you want to offer your service. Then, it’s always good to have contacts with traveling professionals, and already established names in this field. Don’t forget to mention the fact that you work as a home travel agent, which is the old but gold mouth-to-mouth marketing. It will be hard and challenging at the beginning, but if you embrace all the tools you have in these modern times, including social media, to promote yourself online, and attract your customers.
Benefits from working as a travel agent
Working from home gives you the freedom to work from any place you can have a decent and stable Internet connection. Also, you may get some great benefits, like discounts on flights, accommodation, food, being paid to travel and see the world, experience different cultures, and cuisines, and so on. At the same time, you don’t have physical contacts, and you can save your personal space, something we learned to appreciate this year.
Forget about the regular holidays
Even though you will be your own boss and have flexible work time and great benefits, working as a travel agent haves some disadvantages too. This means you need to be available 24/7, 365 days for your customers that are paying for a peaceful and trouble-free vacation especially on holidays when most people like to travel somewhere, travel agents are having a stressful time. This means that mostly you can plan your vacation off-season, which is not bad news – you will avoid all the crowds and noise, and you will really have a time of your life while there.
Is traveling in 2024 possible?
We have less than two months until the end of this year, and many of us hope we will be able to get back to our normal living next year. But, as we can see, it’s highly unlikely to happen, as the coronavirus is spreading more violently compared to March and April. Most of the countries are still closed for tourist travels, and you can only get there if you need medical help or a diplomatic purpose. This doesn’t mean you need to give up on the idea to plan your next vacation, but it’s better to do that with less enthusiasm.
Agents who work from home are an important chain, and it’s a great chance to develop a nice career, even in a time of the pandemic, because after that, people will hurry to travel and visit the places they promised will go there when they were under a lockdown.
