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Startup Costs: $10,000 – $50,000
Home Based: Can be operated from home.
Franchises Available? Yes
Online Operation? Yes

THE BRIEF:

If you thought��travel agents were obsolete, you were right��— to an extent — says �鶹�� writer Clint Carter. When sites like Travelocity and Expedia arrived in the mid-’90s, customers no longer needed their local brick-and-mortar agencies. And once airlines had a direct line to consumers, they stopped offering the commissions agents had long relied on. “The internet killed the old-fashioned travel agent,” says Dave Hershberger, chair of the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA). “It just took them all out of business.”��Of the agents that survived, many found refuge in the exploding cruise industry. While customers approached airline tickets as a basic commodity, they looked at ship travel as an��experience,��and first-time cruise-goers needed all the help they could get sorting through itineraries, dining options and room choices. The old-time role of “agent” began to morph into “adviser.” And once that happened, the industry learned how to adapt and rebuild.

ASK THE PROS:

How much money can you make?

“Host Agency Reviews and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found some common ground in regard to the average salary of a travel agent.����in 2017 as $40,840 with a range of $21,350 and��$62,320 dividing the lower to upper 10% of travel agents. These results are very close to����of a $40,377 average among hosted travel agents with 3+ years experience.” —

What kind of experience do you need to have?

“There are no specific requirements to be a travel agent, but a bachelor’s degree will open up more job opportunities, and certifications might make travel agents more marketable.��After getting experience in this field, there are two popular certifications that will��increase your chances of securing employment.����provides education and training that leads to two certifications:����(CTA) and����(CTC). Agents with at least 12 months of experience in the retail travel industry may apply for the CTA designation. This may involve completing a 15-module curriculum, which covers ethics, customer needs, planning itineraries, touring the world, and travel insurance.” —

What’s the most important thing to know about this business?

“Among the most critical changes that have happend to the industry: Agencies stopped operating out of storefronts, and they very frequently stopped having employees. Businesses became solely owner-­operated, run out of people’s homes. Between 1997 and 2013, the number of agencies with multiple employees fell from nearly 23,000 to fewer than 10,000, according to Skift, a travel-industry research firm. But the number of independent agents actually crept upward, showing a 7 percent gain over roughly the same period. Storefronts are now landing pages, and agents rely on laptops and smartphones to connect clients to large networks of travel suppliers.” —Clint Carter,���鶹�� writer