Do travel agencies still exist?

[Glitch]

I'm having a hard time thinking what they can provide that online searching can't.

[Juice]

Yeah. They provide comp deals, and tie ins with resorts.

[Paul]

Sure. Some people just don't want to deal with booking themselves.

[Natural Born Farmer]

Started working for insurance company about 16 months ago and was surprised to learn individual insurance agencies still exist. The internet didn’t kill all the old sales jobs.

[chazraps]

Jul 8, 2019 21:19:34 GMT -5 Glitch said:

I'm having a hard time thinking what they can provide that online searching can't.

Better deals and more options.

[aka Cthulhu]

I went to a mall when I used to frequent in high school, and there's a travel agency in there that's been in the same spot for at least a decade and a half at this point. Back then, there was this huge arcade (I remember playing House of the Dead 2 a lot back then), and a couple of years later there was an internet cafe as well on that same mall. The travel agency there has outlasted both of those.

[Push R Truth]

Jul 8, 2019 21:20:26 GMT -5 Juice said:

Yeah. They provide comp deals, and tie ins with resorts.

Bingo


My sister in law gives me all kinds of shit that "just do that yourself online it's cheaper and better!" Except it's not. If you find a good agent with a lot of business connections, you literally can't beat it yourself online.


All the internet did was kill giant pile of shitty travel agents that basically just booked your trip for you (believe it or not there is more to being an agent than that). Most of the ones that survived did so for a good reason.

[Deleted]

I would guess so since I work in one.

[Muskrat]

Shit, there’s gotta be at least 10 in the city closest to me and it’s only a population of 55k

[Prince Petty]

Loads. I deal with them indirectly at work, because a lot of cheap travel agencies are involved in drug/cash/people smuggling.

[salz4life]

Used one on our recent Disney World trip.

[ayumidah]

I just drove by one earlier.

There was one in my town that always made me laugh because its website was plzgoaway.com

[Limity (BLM)]

Nope, millennials killed it.

[Jiren]

We have a few where I live but they're mainly big chains (TUI) or catered to a single country (US)

[Deleted]

Travel agencies are a great way to plan a vacation, where you have lots of different things to do and places to go. If you're going to Disney and staying on property, or taking off to a city, hanging around and then coming home, that's stuff that can be done on your own.

In 2000, 2 of my friends and I went on a 2 week vaca in LA, Hollywood and San Diego. Sure, we coulda done it ourselves and that work would've been stressful & we'd have worried every step of the way if something was/wasn't set up right, but the agency (AAA) just asked what we wanted to do - much of the vaca was a precursor to our long weekend at San Diego Comic-Con - and they did all the planning/scheduling. You cannot beat an experience like that, kids. Every trip after that to SDCC was pretty much done ourselves and those were great, but we were there for one event and nothing else...... anything else, we'd have gone to agency route again.

[Wolf Hawkfield no1 NZ poster]

Well a lot of people don't have the time to plan an entire trip by themselves and a good agency can often get a great deal.

Hell my cousin works for one and its always helped me saved money on buying travel insurance.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

Jul 8, 2019 21:19:34 GMT -5 Glitch said:

I'm having a hard time thinking what they can provide that online searching can't.

The irony of starting a thread to ask this instead of searching "Travel Agencies" on Google is delightful.