Travel Tools

Top Reasons to Use a Travel Agency

Here are some links to professional associations that explain how travel agencies work and why using a professional travel agent to plan your trip is a good idea.

ARTA FAQ

The Association of Retail Travel Agents, ARTA, is a national organization dedicated to providing educational and training opportunities to travel agency professionals.  Here is a link to an open letter from a veteran travel executive explaining why using the services of a travel agency is a must today. 
http://web.memberclicks.com/mc/page.do?sitePageId=60566&orgId=arta
Download the PDF

The American Society of Travel Agents, ASTA, is the world’s largest association of travel professionals.  Here is the link to answers they provide regarding just about every facet of a travel agency and why using a travel agent is a good idea.
http://www.asta.org/News/content.cfm?ItemNumber=1985

One of our favorite vendors, Travel Impressions, has issued their fun version of the 10 Ten Reasons to Use a Travel Agency written by Ruthanne Terrero.

Are you debating whether to use a live travel agent to book your vacation or to go it alone by using the Internet?  Here are the top 10 reasons why using a professional is the best choice.

1. You've Googled "Mexico vacation," and come up with 17.8 million responses. Need a little help editing those choices?
2. Remember when you used that obscure website to book your hotel, and when you got there you spent your beach vacation overlooking a parking lot?
3. How many hours were you on hold with the airline when your flight was canceled because of a snowstorm?
4. Did you really mean to spend your honeymoon at that resort whose one tiny pool was filled all day with 12 screaming children?
5. Who knew that when you booked that "villa" in Tuscany, it would be a small room with a kitchenette and no air conditioning? Funny, it looked much better on your computer screen.
6. No one explained to you that in July, it's winter time in Rio, and so you showed up there with nothing but five Hawaiian shirts and three pairs of swimming trunks.
7. How about the time you really needed a restful vacation, and you ended up in New Orleans during Mardi Gras and someone threw up on your shoes?
8. Yes, I guess that hotel must have used a telephoto lens when they took a picture of those guest rooms that you saw on their website.
9. I suppose contacting the Attorney General to resolve the fact that that Internet site has billed your credit card three times instead of once is the only route to take at this point.
10. It was definitely odd that there were no cab drivers at the airport at 3 o'clock in the morning when you finally landed in Costa Rica, but booking a transfer to your very remote hotel would have been a good thing to remember when you purchased your airline ticket and hotel online.