TravelResearchOnline.com Blog

Groups are on my mind today. I’ve put together my fair share of wedding groups, from small (10 people) to large (100 people).  Last year, I decided to try my hand in incentive group travel and I’m still not exactly sure what I think of the process. I started working with one prospective group in [...]

I was going to write about the importance of having a niche or specialty versus being a generalist and trying to service everyone.  I truly believe that having a niche or specialty is paramount to success in this business, but as the economy has wavered over the past year, I have found myself taking business [...]

Every January and February it seems to suddenly dawn on people that winter isn’t going away anytime soon.  It’s like we’re pre-programmed to only be able to withstand 2-3 months of cold before we need to start making plans to escape on a brief hiatus to somewhere warm.  When that internal alarm goes off, phones [...]

“Everyone knows more about travel than I do.” When I first got into this business I thought that was going to be the case. Now, almost three years later, I know that is the case.  Why, because I hear it at least once a week. Not from other travel agents or vendors but from some [...]

Upon re-entering the travel industry after a 20 year hiatus, I have been overwhelmed by the massive amounts of information and disinformation I have had to sift through in order to get my group travel and club business up and running. I have a partner who has a completely different set of skills than I [...]

The past 15 plus years of my life have been spent thinking about the tropics way more than most people should. Some might call it all consuming or an obsession. I call it passion. I’ll admit, I was bitten by the tropical bug early on and have weathered the storm of commission caps, cuts, wars, [...]

My name is Jamison Bachrach and I am the owner of Wandering Puffin LLC. I have been in the travel industry for over 14 years. Before starting my own home based agency, I worked for both an American Express affiliate and AAA, both as an in house travel agent and an independent contractor . At [...]

Despite having grown up in the family travel agency, I never thought I’d be a part of the travel industry.  Yet here I am; and I really enjoy it.    Before we get into the meat of the TRO Travel Agent Diaries, I want to give you a little background about myself and how I came [...]

It seems like it was just a couple of weeks ago that I wrote my first agent diary article outlining my goals for 2009. While the calendar shows that nearly 12 months have passed, it hardly seems possible.
As you may recall, I had two major objectives this year-to gain 100 new clients in 100 days [...]

Last year, I was the newbie. I came to the TRO shortly after making the decision to separate myself and my fledgling agency from YTB. When offered the opportunity to write a Diary segment, I felt it would be a great help in getting me on my feet. Looking back over my first year as [...]