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Travel Jobs New Zealand |
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A travel agency is a business that sells travel related products
and services to end-user customers on behalf of third party
travel suppliers, such as airlines, hotels and cruise lines.
Customers of travel agencies include tourists and business
travellers. Some agencies also serve as general service agents
for foreign travel companies in different countries.
Travel agencies have been organized mostly since the development
of commercial aviation from the 1920s, although Thomas Cook was
a notable early, pre-flight pioneer in 1841. The British
Company, Cox & Kings is the oldest travel agent in the world,
established in 1758. Some operate with a chain of stores and
others are one store operations. A few of the larger travel
agencies sell their own products. Agencies without their own
product are arguably more impartial and more likely to offer
something to suit the traveller; they are known as independent
agencies. there are three different types of agencies: these are
Multiples, Miniples and independent agencies.
Most travel agencies do not sell airline tickets only; their
services vary, and many of them sell more cruise ship packages
than airline tickets. Most travel agencies also arrange car
rental deals for their customers, and many concentrate on
arranging charter or group trips to different destinations. For
this, they deal with regular airlines, but many times, they also
hire charter airlines. Many travel agencies exclusively
represent a small group of supplier airlines, cruise and car
hire companies and, often, the logos of the supplier companies
are displayed on the windows of the agency's office.
Travel agencies also market and sell train and hotel products.
Generally, their goal is to try to fit an ideal schedule onto
the requirements of each specific customer.
The phrase travel agency has changed meaning since the emergence
of companies like Thomson or Thomas Cook, who are now considered
to be tour operators rather than travel agents. The difference
is that tour operators manufacture and sell their own holidays
whereas independent travel agents sell holidays from all the
tour operators without limiting the range they offer to just
their own product. The best travel agents deal honestly with a
wide range of customers.
In the UK a group of just such travel agents formed a consortium
which became known as Worldchoice. Each agency was independently
owned, bonded members of ABTA and Worldchoice was the vehicle
for both commercial negotiations with the tour operators and
also a forum for best practise. In 2006 there were 700 agents in
the Worldchoice consortium of independent travel agents
In 2006 Worldchoice, Advantage and Global Travel decided to pool
their buying power and formed Triton Travel. This is now the
UK's largest travel agency grouping and has over 15% of the UK's
travel agency spend. |
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