That's right, sugar. It's a whole new day at the travel agency. No more shopping around on my time. You want a custom vacation? Show me the money. I need a hundred bucks before I so much as lift a finger to find you that honeymoon in Seychelles or Fiji. Surprised by the fee? Never had to pay for information before? Sure you have, just not from a travel agent. Time is money, and my knowledge is valuable so you'll pay for access to it. That's how it is now.
The reality is we don't see a lot of results from cold call phone or email queries. They're a long shot so we won't work with a new client without a personal, and I mean in person, consultation. A lot of our efforts don't pay off until long after you've come home from that vacation and put your photos up on your web page. The airlines don't pay us a red cent to do their work for them, of course. The hotels in Europe rarely pay their commissions. The tour vendors don't hand it over until after the client leaves which can be months after the booking is made, and even then we have to remind them half the time. The money flow in leisure travel is sluggish to say the least. So if you want me to spend time comparing prices on thatched bungalows I would be delighted to tell you why Praslin is better than Mahe. Come on down. We take cash, check, or credit card, and we take it now.
See, we're getting screwed right, left and center. That's because we are the center. We're the merchant, halfway between the supplier and the customer. But we're not a free service anymore. Look up the cost of a flight? Sure. Want hotels in Paris, London, and Rome? I'll give you a general idea of cost, but I won't investigate without the research fee. It takes time to find the perfect combination of location, price, and ambience on those three hotels, as much as two hours if you're really picky or it's for a busy time of year in those cities, so if you don't reserve them that's a lot of money out the window. That's three or four vacation packages I could have been selling, ones that are simple and pre-set like Hawaii or Mexico. That's several cruise bookings which pay much better than hotels. That's dozens of airline tickets issued in between typing up invoices and checking the hotel web sites against my database prices. So I can't give out too much information over the phone. Otherwise I'm working for free, and believe me, I don't work for a non-profit organization.
Oh, I understand why you feel dismayed about the new rules. You're buying a cheap ticket to L.A. and my fee is roughly a quarter of that cost. That's gotta hurt. But it's an average for us, a flat rate. The fellow who buys the $2,400 ticket to Chicago paid the same fee you did. Be sure to write your congressperson and complain about the airlines who have shoved the cost of doing business onto your back. Remember all those cheap fares online? Guess what? Those are going away. Why would the airlines undercut themselves? They aren't trying to put us out of work anymore so they've gone back to offering the same thing online that you get if you called them direct. Funny how that works. They got a five billion dollar bailout from the government last year and how did they repay you? Uh huh. Here, I've got some ointment for that around here somewhere.
I'm sympathetic but I can't afford to be sentimental. Many people are perfectly sincere in their belief that they're going to book something with me. They need the information so they can decide how much, when, and where. And I'm there if they need me, yes I am...for a price. I get email every day from strangers in other cities, other states, folks who don't even live in the same country sometimes, asking for quotes on custom trips. "Please quote Mexico, Bermuda, Italy, and Tahiti. We'll decide and get back to you." And I am Marie of Romania.
It's critical that I separate the shoppers from the buyers as fast as possible. Fees make that so much easier. When confronted with the awful possibility of having to come by in person for a consultation about half of the inquiries are dropped. They weren't serious, just shopping. When confronted with the spectre of paying a research fee another quarter drop the query. They were serious, but not that serious. They'll potter around online to see if they can find something themselves. They may come back later if they get frustrated about how to choose among all the options. The rest are people who know they don't want to do it themselves, who will pay someone to take the load of their shoulders. They're planning a wedding, they don't have time to do the honeymoon as well, or they're overwhelmed by too many choices for their vacation. Those people pay for my time and get eleven years worth of experience and service. It's worth it to them.
The ones who don't think it's worth it? Cheers, then. I hope you find what works for you. It's not magic, what I do, just hard work and clever thinking. It's keeping up with global politics, economics, and the weather as well as familiarizing myself with destinations, properties, and tour operators. I've got a lot to offer as your native guide through the tangled thicket of travel deals if you want one. It'll cost you a small fee, that's all. I'm ready if you are.
And my smile is one hundred percent free.
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