TRO Tips

Travel Research Online (TRO) provides a Research Request that gives you, a travel consultant, the ability to place a travel itinerary in front of multiple suppliers, each of whom will respond with offers, information and assistance. TRO also provides a number of Research tools that you can use to better understand a destination or activity. A number of Marketing tools are also available to assist you with providing high quality information to clients directly. Finally, a private discussion Community is available to you for conversation with other industry professionals.

We designed TRO to assist you when researching a complex itinerary or an itinerary for lesser-known destinations or activities. Use TRO for travel that requires more research than most commodity travel � TRO will probably not help much with a basic package to Las Vegas or Cancun, or any travel easily researched through a booking engine. However, if you want to book scuba diving or jungle exploring in and around Cancun, or anywhere else, we can help. Likewise, we do not assist with mass market cruises, but if you want an eco-cruise, or a river cruise, or if you want to explore Antarctica on a niche market cruise, TRO can be an invaluable tool.

Until you contact the supplier directly, no personal information for your client is ever provided. You can use our Marketing Tools with complete confidence. No personal client information is ever retained by our system, nor is your personal information shared with suppliers for purposes of marketing.

Best of all, TRO is free to use.

With TRO, you can:

Get Help with a complicated itinerary
Research Travel Specials, Destinations, Activities, and Tour Operators
Market to your clients
Speak with other travel professionals

Here�s How:

Get Help with a complicated itinerary.
1. Whenever you have a request from a client for a �high touch� itinerary, you can use the TRO Research Request to send the itinerary to several suppliers at once.
2. TRO specializes in itineraries that are not �commodity� items. You will not find much assistance here with Orlando, Las Vegas, mass market cruises, or Cancun. But if you have a safari, an antiquing tour, an eco-cruise or a river cruise, or other interesting theme or itinerary -- you have found the help you need.
3. When suppliers send you information, you receive an e-mail alerting you that a supplier has responded.
4. Once you receive your responses, you can evaluate the Suppliers and choose among them.
5. Suppliers responding to Research Requests are not charged for doing so. It is also not a requirement that a Supplier advertise with us to participate in the Research Request system. To be a TRO Supplier, the tour operator or cruise line must have a history of working with travel agents and pay a commission.
6. In the event you do not get a �match� on your Research Request, a TRO administrator will contact you directly and provide you with assistance.
Research Travel Specials, Destinations, Activities, and Tour Operators
1. TRO contains thousands of pages of research information that you can use at no charge. These pages are sponsored by many of the Suppliers that respond to your Research Requests.
2. TRO content is researched, written and maintained by travel professionals like yourself.
Market to your clients.
1. Travel Agents can email much of our content directly to their clients, branded with their travel agency logo.
2. The Activity Guides and Voyager Guides, as well as our e-postcard system are available free of charge to Travel Agents. The Word Travels destination series is available for customization and emailing for a small annual subscription.
3. No client information is retained by our system, ever.
Speak with other travel professionals.
1. TRO provides a professional forum where you can ask questions of TRO administrators and other travel professionals.
2. TRO has a strict �no-flame� policy. Violators will be first warned and then removed from the system. TRO is here to assist with research.
3. Our Forums are �professionals only� and are not open for public viewing.
4. TRO will strive to find answers for your questions, so they will not go unanswered. There are a few notable topic exceptions, such as CRS questions, for which our administrators do not provide assistance.

Please provide us with continual feedback on how to improve the TRO system and the value you derive from it by emailing support@travelresearchonline.com. Want to know more? Here is our FAQ page.