Reply To: Becoming an independent travel advisor

[NigelHamilton]

I do it and combine it with a full time job, but as Rob says above the real skill/hard part is getting clients. I’m lucky in that I’ve had a few very decent jobs in my time so have plenty of people who trust me and are prepared to put bookings of decent value through my agency. Hence haven’t had to advertise. I can also usually get hotels far cheaper than the big sites for clients – often substantially less especially at the top end. Most of my colleagues who are successful either have lots of contacts or have found a particular niche.

The benefits to yourself are also very decent, I was lucky enough to win a £15-20k holiday to the Maldives but that’s obviously unusual! But there are substantial discounts at hotels etc (I got an upmarket Marriott at a third of the public rate and could have sold it for half the public rate and still made a substantial profit), and recently went on safari at a fraction of the commercial cost.

There are several companies around, some are expensive and there is one particular one you should not go with under any circumstances. Do feel free to drop me a line at nigel@gingertravel.co.uk and I am happy to have a chat about the pros and cons.