Roles played by travel agents to customers



By Jumia Travel Tanzania

The invasion of the internet has led to a reasonable number of customers shifting their concentration from visiting offices to online platforms. Nowadays, customers can search for information about the services and products of their choice through the available company’s websites within a short time.

Among the sectors which have embraced that technology effectively is tourism and hospitality. If you use the internet regularly then you must have come across a quite number of companies offering online travel services like Jumia Travel, and Expedia.

But all these transformations do not imply that travel agents are totally replaced by online platforms. However, it is noticeable that there is a decrease in number of customers who prefer to visit offices rather than online platforms. Jumia Travel ascertains that travel agents still play great roles in the following areas:

Provide travel expertise. Planning for a trip can be daunting if you are not familiar with the requirements and procedures. Travel agents are experts on those issues due to spending much time on the same industry, get involved with a lot of customers as well as deep relationships with hotels and airline companies. And most of all it will not cost you a penny to reach out for their assistance since most of them are paid through commissions.  

They’re cost saving. Travel agents could be a means of cost saving as they have access to services which can cost a customer dearly if he/she decides to approach a hotel or airline company directly. Good and long-term relationships with service providers give all the accesses unlike one-time customers. And most importantly, agents receive special offers and also provide discounts so as to increase their sales and of business partners respectively.   

They save time. Organizing a trip whether solo or a group could cost much of your time as you could imagine. Thanks to the presence of travel agents since you can put all the burden to them. Being operating in the same industry for long time enable them to research a lot and be aware of which things are preferred most by their customers. So instead of searching on the internet blindly, try to relax and leave agents to do all the hard work for you while you are waiting for a call that everything has been sorted out.

Offers refuge to customers. Someone might be wondering how is that possible if what they offer is as the same as offered by service providers? The answer is simple, things get messy sometimes, such as being late for a flight or flight being cancelled or not given a room which you booked. You don’t have to panic in moments like these, as longer as you have booked with a travel agent, just sit back and make a call for your issue to be resolved.

They know what's best for customers. By working in the industry for 10, 20, or 30 years, it's obvious that they know which questions customers ask the most and what to respond to them. Hence from their experience they know what is the best for their customers. In addition to that, agents know and receive offers prior everyone else so it is very easy to recommend them to their customers.

Provide right choices to customers. Among the advantages of opting travel agents is that they offer customers with variety of services from different companies. Their main concern is to offer customers with as many choices as possible so as to win their trust and loyalty. Therefore, they value dearly what their customers prefer and satisfy their wants.

In short, first of all you have to know what kind of a trip you would like to proceed with before approaching a travel agent. If it's just a short trip with uncomplicated procedures you can do all the procedures online by yourself. The number of travel agents which offer both online and offline services is not that huge, but Jumia Travel has both services in all the places where it operates in and out of the African continent.   
  

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