TravelResearchOnline.com Blog

Spiritual travel is certainly a growing segment of the travel industry, mostly due to the generation of baby boomers having the time, inclination and desire to look deeply inside themselves. Perhaps the inspiration for this kind of travel started back in the “hippy days” when we were first investigating new and different approaches to spirituality [...]

As an industry, we are continually looking for ways to increase the visibility of our our agencies and our position against competition, especially on-line travel companies. The tool that  gives us the most visibility and competitive edge is specialization. The definition of a specialist is “one who concentrates on a particular activity or product”.  When [...]

I recently “attended” a virtual travel expo conducted by a major wholesaler, and I have to admit it left me feeling flat. Try as I might, I just can’t get excited about these online shows.
I understand all the arguments in support of virtual events (cost savings, time savings, wider reach, the ability to archive the [...]

The Sunday travel section of my local newspaper was losing advertisers. Not only that— the content was lacking imagination. Circulation was down as it is with a lot of newspapers across the country. In an effort to boost lagging advertising revenue the new account executive reached out to the travel agent community for support and [...]

I often use consolidators to service my client inquiries. As a home-based agent, I choose not to subscribe to a GDS system, mainly due to the overhead cost. Therefore, I typically rely on consolidators to ticket international air as an ideal alternative. Our requests for international travel are wide-ranging, from business trips to students, couples, [...]

It’s Sunday afternoon, my family is watching football, and I am sitting at my desk stressing out about the pile of work that I need to get through. I have six clients waiting for proposals/quotes, two sets of documents that have to go in the mail, a monthly newsletter to write, dozens of names that [...]

Why are you a travel professional?  Ask any travel professional this question, and one of the top three answers is ‘because I love to travel.’  I’m certainly not an exception: I was bitten by the travel bug at a very young age, and each year I go somewhere I’m having the time of my life.  [...]

“If you’re good at something never do it for free.” – The Joker in The Dark Knight
Many of us who write for Travel Research Online have become or are firm believers in charging professional fees for our consultation services. We have grown weary of being used as quoting service. Nothing emphasizes this philosophy more clearly [...]

“It is too much work to travel with the little ones.”  I hear this all the time from parents.  With the spring break travel season upon us, I thought it befitting to address this topic now.  As both a travel agent and a parent of small children, I do not believe there is a one-size-fits-all [...]

It was the first morning of the Cruise Holidays’ store front convention a few weeks ago, and I was sitting alone having breakfast in the section on Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas’ dining room reserved for their premium Crown & Anchor members. I was working on my “live” blog for the trip in the [...]