With all of the online access currently available to everyone, in addition to the hard push from companies to get you to book your vacations directly with them, why on earth do you need a travel agent?

Several reasons actually, and they are good ones.

First and foremost, if you call Viking and ask them about a river cruise they are absolutely not going to tell you a competitor has a better itinerary or a better price point, are they? Of course not. Those reservation agents are getting paid to sell Viking, and no one else.

I am not picking on Viking, it’s the same with Avalon, AMA, Uniworld, Royal Caribbean, Holland America, NCL, Carnival, Hyatt, Riu, Secrets, all of them. They aren’t getting to paid to sell other brands, only their own.

In fact, my Viking rep says it this way “Travel globally, but buy locally”. She says no one is going to take of you like your trusted travel agent, and that includes her own reservation agents.

My Globus rep agrees “Every product we offer isn’t a good fit for every customer. Their travel agent is going to steer them toward the best product for them.”

If you call The Joy of Travel we are going to compare the best companies and find the one or two that are going to satisfy your requirements most completely. The key to that statement is “satisfy your requirements”, and by that I mean ALL of your requirements. We look at the total picture.

For instance, I recently had a nice lady call and ask about river cruises. As we began to talk about what she wanted to experience I discovered she does not indulge in alcoholic beverages. Not at all. She had no idea there is a first class river cruise company whose price point is at least 33% cheaper because they do not offer complimentary wine and beer with lunch and dinner. She got her cruise for under $1600 per person cruise fare just because she had the good sense to call a professional. Me.

Did I make less money booking her on that cruise rather than one of the most well-known brands? I did. In fact, the less you spend the less we make. But when you are happy, you come back to us over and over again. You tell your friends, and that’s incalculably valuable to us.

It’s the same point for every kind of trip you can imagine. If you call the travel supplier directly you are getting a one sided opinion, and a fraction of the entire picture.

I have a family friendly resort I love in Jamaica. What the website doesn’t tell you is there’s a naked people beach right next door. And I do mean right next door, there’s literally a hedge between your little girl and some big fat naked man. The problem is he is going to get up and walk into the water, right in front of your little girl. Been there, saw it happen.

There are several wonderful adult only resorts that suffer from serious location problems. One of my all time favorites built a little island in front of their resort. The issue is the water between the beach and the island is now stagnant and stinks like a septic tank overflow. It’s disgusting.

There are other great resorts whose location means you have the noise of jets flying overhead all day, every day. It’s a big deal to some people, and they need to know before they go.

Let’s say you want to buy a minivan. Do you evaluate only one brand? Of course not. You compare the Honda to the Accord to the Nissan to the Toyota.

That’s exactly what we do for you. In fact we do you one even better-we experience the properties first before we ever recommend them to you. That’s right. We travel all over the world, in an incredible variety of ways, just so we can offer first hand personal expertise about whatever it is you’re wanting to book.

So there it is. Why you should use The Joy of Travel. I’m very proud of my agents and the work we do here. I hope you’ll share this blog with your friends and family and encourage them to give us a try. Thank you!

The Joy of Travel, #experiencematters #thesmartchoice

Why Use a Travel Agent?