5 Reasons Why You Should Use A Travel Advisor

I am going to start with number 5 and work my way to number one because number one is the best reason of all time.

Number 5 – It’s all taken care of

Whether you have it all planned, nothing planned at all or somewhere in between your travel advisor will put everything together at the best possible price available. Some people have a hard time giving up control and want to plan their own adventures. That’s ok because sometimes the fun part of a vacation is the planning. But that doesn’t mean that finding the best price is fun, finding that perfect place is. The consumer doesn’t have the myriad of options on where to book that perfect place that a travel professional does. It is the professionals job to find the best value for your vacation. Your travel professional does this for a living so they know every aspect of the trip, even the ones you don’t think of. I like to tell my clients that I will take care of everything from the time you drop off your car at the airport until you return to pick up your car at the end of the trip. I have even been known to pick up clients from the airport and transport them to the cruise ship terminal.

Number 4 – We love the training

One of the reasons I decided to start my own travel business was to travel more. While operating my business, travelling is now research and oh how I love to do the research. Most of the travel industry offers discounted trips for the professional that wants to learn about their product. This is anything from a guided trip through Ireland with the owner of a travel tour company or an inaugural cruise on a brand new cruise ship.

We travel with a different view on our surroundings. I am always on the lookout for new and different things for my clients to experience. I never take the same trip twice because there is always something new I am looking to offer my clients.

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I took a familiarization trip to Ireland with Sceptre Vacations in February not once thinking that they get snow in Ireland. We had a great first leg of our trip from Seattle to New Jersey, in fact during our 5 hour layover we decided to venture into New York city just for pizza. The weather was amazing, about 60 degrees and perfect for short sleeved shirts. We had lunch and returned to the airport for our overnight flight to Dublin. The first time we heard about the weather conditions in Ireland was while on the flight, the crew said a storm was about to hit the island and they were unsure if we could land. By the time we did land the Irish government was calling for the shutdown of the entire country by that evening. We were the last plane that landed that day and we had to sit on the tarmac for 90 minutes while they cleared the snow from the gate to be able to park the plane. It was so bad in fact that about a third of our group was diverted to London and never did make it to Ireland. The point I am trying to make is that we were able to spend 5 days on a tour of Ireland with the owner of the tour company and really got to know how they take care of their customers even during a snow storm.

Number 3 – Insider access to deals

Being part of a large group of travel professionals like cruise Planners gives me exclusive access to deals that the general public just can’t match. You never know when is the right time to purchase your trip to get the best value. When booking a cruise with Cruise Planners you don’t need to. We have custom software that searches the pricing on all of the major cruise lines for changes in pricing. This program is constantly checking your exact room category and rate code to see if the price has gone down. That means that the best time to book your cruise is as far out as you know your preferred dates of travel. The other way I can save you money is group space. This is where Cruise Planners takes out group space on the best sailings on most of the major cruise lines at preferred pricing. The price of your cruise is based on popularity and the more popular the cruise the higher the price will be. That means that finding last minute deals isn’t going to happen for the popular dates and itineraries. The price of the cruise is just going to keep increasing the closer you get to the sail date. I can still offer you amazing deals based on the group space I still have available to me through Cruise Planners. This happens because they lock in group space as soon as the cruise lines release rooms on a particular sailing, then when the prices start going up because of demand our pricing stays the same. So booking with a Cruise Planner Travel Advisor really has the best of both worlds, people that like to book early and procrastinators.

Number 2 – Groups

As a Travel Adviser my favorite thing to plan is groups. I love to help people that want to get together as a group but just don’t know where to start. Family reunions, class reunions, work meetings, weddings, or maybe just your friends from church are all great groups to get together and have fun. Travelling is always more fun with groups. I take the hassle out of trying to get everybody on the same page. I like to work with a couple of the group leaders to nail down the itinerary and then I set up a special section on my website dedicated to booking the individuals of the group. All the group leader has to do is get the word out and let me take over the details no matter how many individuals are in the group. I even have the ability to create special one of a kind excursions tailored to the group. For instance if your passion is history then maybe a private tour of a local museum would be something we can arrange.

Number 1 – It doesn’t cost you anything

That’s right all of my services are paid for by the travel suppliers. The travel suppliers would rather pay us to do their marketing for them. You probably haven’t heard of most of the companies I use to create travel packages and they like to keep it that way. They want the travel professional to recruit their customers for them. It’s much easier this way because they only pay if they book something through them, whereas if they advertise on TV they pay whether someone calls to book or not.

In short I’m here to help everyone have their dream vacation and I take my job very seriously. I just ran across this quote from Steve Jobs that sums up my feelings on being a travel advisor. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll now when you find it.“

I’ve found it!