Where do you start when it comes to planning your vacation?

Step 1 – choose the right travel agent to help!  With so many destinations, travel guidelines and restrictions, resort and tour options travel planning can be overwhelming – travel agents can help guide you in your decision making process by providing both experience and industry knowledge that can prove invaluable.

So how do you choose? Simply searching for a “travel agent near me” and picking the first result that pops up may not be the best solution. Here are some helpful hints you should consider when choosing a travel agent for your next adventure.

Why Choosing a Travel Agent is Tricky!

When you begin your search there are a huge number of options provided – the digital world we live in ensures vast amounts of information to be delivered to your fingertips!  Search engines automatically rank options based on their relevance – certainly this means the first result will almost always be the best travel agent or agency to help you with your trip?  Unfortunately that is not the case. While it would absolutely make life easier the search engine simply cannot provide you with all the answers you need!   Search engines are complex, based on data that may not be relevant or important to you and your needs and by all means cannot measure some of the most important aspects of having a trusted travel agent as a partner.

That being said, our digital world can provide you with some helpful information to include credentials, reviews and content and is worth the time it takes to do some investigation.

How to Pick!

Vacation are unique for each person, family or group and are an investment, even if it is local or only for a short period of time.  Aside from these factors your time is valuable and what you get you want to spend making the memories with family and friends during your vacation – not setting in front of a computer planning it.   Here are some important things to consider when making your choice!

Reputation

When choosing a travel agent or agency to help you with your next trip, we cannot stress highly enough how important it is that you check their reputation. In fact, this should always be one of the first things that you do.

Why is this? Well, in short, considering the agent’s past reviews and reputation can provide a lot of insight into the services that they provide. Indeed, any travel agent can claim to be the best – but are they really as good as they say? Are they all they’re cracked up to be? Reviews can help you understand this.

Reviews from a travel agent’s past customers are particularly beneficial to consider. After all, they’re an unbiased opinion of the agency’s services and professionalism!

When looking at past customer reviews, the following things are worth thinking about:

● What was the star rating for the review (usually on a 1- to 5-star basis)?

● Where did the customers travel to?

● How long was their trip?

● What was the customer service like with the travel agency?

● Did the customer have any issues with the travel agency?

Finding out this information is easy; you can usually get a good idea of the travel agency’s reputation by considering this. Always make sure you check both the high and low rated reviews, too; they may provide more insight when considered together than when considered separately from one another.

Make Sure the Reviews Are Legitimate!

When considering a company’s reputation, always think about the legitimacy of the reviews! Unfortunately, it is possible for companies to fake reviews – this is something that is happening increasingly often these days. However, there are normally a few signs that can indicate that a company’s seemingly stellar reviews may not be all they’re claiming!

● When were the reviews posted? A common mistake that fake reviewers make when reviewing a company is that all of the reviews appear to be posted at the same time, or notably close in time to each other. For example, if you notice that many of the reviews seem to all be posted on the same day, or if the reviews are being posted at seemingly regular intervals, you may want to consider the potential of the reviews being faked.

● Do the reviews sound similar? This is something else that’s important to consider when thinking about a company’s reputation. If the reviews sound quite similar to each other then there’s the chance that they may have been written by the same person! Think about it for a moment – everyone has their own unique way of speaking and their own unique way of writing, too. So, if the reviews all use the same sort of language there’s the chance that they could have been faked by someone looking to get more positive reviews for their travel agency.

● Do they go into detail? A final thing that you might want to consider is whether the reviews go into detail. Normally, with legitimate reviews, you will see a selection of long and short reviews. Some reviews may only have a star rating. Others might have a short, few-word response (for example, “great service” or “highly recommended travel agency!”) while others could go into much more detail. So, when checking the integrity of reviews, check to see if there are varying lengths – and for longer reviews, do the reviewers go into detail about their trip? If they do, it’s more likely the review is legitimate – and vice versa.

Industry Knowledge

Choosing a travel agent to help with your next trip can seem difficult, but one of the most important things is that you choose someone with extensive experience in the industry. There are so many complications which could impact your vacation, from canceled flights to forgotten aspects of the trip; having a skilled travel agency on your side for the holiday will mean that any such difficulties are easily resolved.

Customer Service

When you choose a travel agent to help with your next trip, you should always think about the customer service that is available from the team. As part of this, consider how you can get in touch with them, their working hours, and how fast they have responded to any messages so far. After all, if there’s ever any updates that you need to know about while stuck in another country, you want a travel agent who you can rely on to get the right info to you as soon as possible!

Where Can Agents Help Me Travel To?

If you think that your next vacation would benefit from having a travel agency on your side, then you may be wondering about where you can travel with their help. And in short, the answer to this question is – well, anywhere you want!

A travel agency may specialize in a specific destination, such as Europe or local vacations. You should always check, therefore, that your chosen travel agent can provide you with the level of support for your vacation that you want!

However, it’s safe to say that travel agencies can help you get anywhere you’ve dreamed of.  In fact, their expertise and connections in the industry may even allow you to travel to destinations that might not of ever dreamed of also.

By choosing a travel agent to help you with your vacation, you’ll benefit in numerous ways.  Spend your time enjoying your vacation, not planning it or worrying about the details or potential hiccups that may come up along the way.

About Our Team

If you’ve been trawling the search engines for a “travel agent near me” then our team here at Fly Over Travel by Beach Happy may be able to help. We are proud to be able to offer our clients a superior standard of service for all of their holiday needs.

Our team has the skills and experience in the travel industry to get you where you want to go for the most competitive prices. From the beaches of Caribbean to the awe-inspiring landscapes, sights, and culture of Europe, or any travel destination in mind then we are here to help you make it a reality.  We are a team of five that all have specialized in various destinations around the world – not “jacks of all trades” but true experts in our areas.  We work in unison to provide the best experience to our clients no matter where their adventure is taking them.

Don’t put the fate of your next trip at stake. Give our team the chance to organize the perfect vacation for you, your family and your friends; after all, you deserve the chance to get away and experience the many wonders of the world, and we are here to help you do exactly that.

We would love to hear form you!

Follow our adventures at:

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