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Travel agencies are changing"TRAVEL AGENCIES" Can't find what you need? Try a Google Web Search in the box below!
10/26/2004 "Oct. 26--PEORIA, Ill. -- When Barb Hoffman became a co-owner of a travel agency in 1987, it was a different world. Travel agents received commissions from the airlines, nobody booked trips on the Internet and small travel agencies abounded." That's all changed. "There used to be more than a dozen travel agencies abounded in the Peoria area. Now there are six," she said. Hoffman is former co-owner of Sutton Travel, one of three Peoria travel agencies purchased in the past year by Bloomington-based Suzi Davis Travel, which also purchased Compass Travel in Morton'. While smaller travel agencies are dropping by the wayside, Suzi Davis is growing. "We're expecting to have $20 million in sales this year. Sales should be $25 million in another year," said Tim Davis, president of the agency founded by his mother. The company has 58 employees at present and expects to expand to 70 by next year, he said. "We saw a lot of growth in the last year," said Davis, noting the company also bought an agency in Champaign and is now looking to expand into Springfield, LaSalle-Peru and Rockford. Davis attributes the company's growth to the adjustments made in a rapidly-changing industry. "The three basic food groups for a healthy diet in the travel business include individual, corporate and group travel," he said. Can't find what you need? Try a Google Web Search in the box below!
Suzi Davis has organized separate units to focus on those specific market segments. "In our industry of travel agencies if you stay the way you are, you're not going to attract any new blood and eventually the business will go away," said Davis. Advancing technology has been a challenge for travel agents, he said. "Our number-one competition is the Internet but it's also our number-one asset. We couldn't do what we do without it but it's also the thing we have to work the hardest to overcome," said Davis. Other area travel agencies also contend with the Web. "We're seeing more people using the Internet for research but they're still coming in to book through a travel agency," said Shelley Wilson, vice president of Carson Wagonlit/Alexander Travel in Metro Centre. "They use an agency not just for the ease of booking but for the knowledge that travel agents have," she said. With 25 full and part-time employees, business has been good at the Alexander agency, said Wilson. "I think we're past the travel problems of 9-11. Travel agents that still talk about that are using it as an excuse. It's behind us. It's three years ago," she said. Travel agents are learning to build their own Web sites, said Davis. "Travel agency Web sites have served more like billboards in the past. We need to be marketing ourselves (online)," he said. Suzi Davis Travel will soon offer a cheap airfares search feature on its Web site to better serve travel customers, he said. A Web scraping tool will scan airfares from 14 different Web sites including travel sites like Travelocity and Orbitz for a $15 fee, said Davis. Visiting the Suzi Davis site will save customers the time and trouble of checking numerous travel sites, he said. "How will (sites like) Expedia counter this? I see a definite change coming with travel sites," said Davis, looking for the agency's service to be online by January. Merging the Sutton, Ambassador and Pegasus outlets into one Peoria agency -- at the former Pegasus office at 4615 N. University St. -- has required some adjustments, he said. "We've had challenges synching it all together," said Davis. "We're in a corporate culture now instead of running an office of five or six people. It's a whole new mindset," he said. For Hoffman and Mary Seaton, former Pegasus manager, the new order is working. "We're compartmentalized now," said Hoffman. "I've given up autonomy (of owning a business) but there's comfort in having a team behind you," she said. The new agency's size allows Suzi Davis to be more versatile, said Seaton. "We still give good service," she said. It's a bold new world for travel agencies these days, said Hoiffman. "Without the backing and buying power (of a large agency), you can't compete," she said. What hasn't changed is that travel remains a people business, said Hoffman.
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"People are smarter about travel than they used to be," she said. Customers are willing to use the Internet to gather information about travel options and costs, said Hoffman. But all that online research doesn't eliminate the need for a travel agent, she said. "The savvy traveler is not going to commit several thousand dollars without back-up. They want to come back to their travel agent," Hoffman said. But small agencies haven't disappeared entirely. The Pekin Travel Co. has been in business 11 years with two full-time employees and one part-timer, said manager Rita Rittenhouser. "We get an incredible amount of referrals as well as business from people who tried booking trips on the Internet and got in a bind," she said..... Compare airline tickets from travel agencies here /cheap airfares home |