Travel agencies recover after tough times; they have added fees due to losing commissions from the airlines, but can find the best deals fast and offer excellent customer service.

AuthorMorgan, Barbara

Why did many Anchorage travel agencies close their doors in the last few years? What hard times have they had? What have they come up against? The travel industry was hit hard by Sept. 11, 2001, but that's not the whole story.

Following 9/11, the airlines cut all commissions to travel agencies-commissions that were their largest source of revenue. At the same time, booking travel on the Internet rose in popularity.

In a failing company environment, many travel agencies closed their doors, unable to sell. Some companies gave other businesses their staff and business accounts. Many just left the state.

Both Easy Travel and New World Travel & Tours laid off people. "We downsized. We closed a branch in Valdez. We have had to work harder and smarter," says Harry Gregson, owner of Easy Travel. The company had to consolidate. It used to have two branches in Anchorage, one in Eagle River and one in Kenai. Now it just has one in Anchorage and one in Kenai.

It's been a changing marketplace. "Different clientele."--" De finitely different."--"Changed drastically."--"Downsized considerably." ... are the comments from travel agencies.

A small company, making $2 million or $3 million, could not survive without consolidating and running a profit and return on investment.

USTravel laid off 15 to 20 people, but as soon as business volume climbed, it was adding staff.

PUBLIC PERCEPTION

The public perception of travel agents is that they are having a hard time. That is not the case for travel management companies that have consolidated and expanded their use of technology.

The common belief that the Internet is cheaper may not be true. To stay competitive with the Internet, USTravel utilizes software that searches more than 30 different airline and discount travel Web sites--like Expedia and Travelo-city, for example.

"We have tracked the number of tickets sold where we found a lower fare on the Internet, and out of 160,000 tickets, our agents only found 112 lower fares on the Internet," reports Mark Eliason, president & CEO.

"There are more people traveling. There are more jobs. There are more opportunities in the travel industry," says Jennifer Dietz, owner of Career Academy, "but the public perception is there aren't any jobs."

USE THE INTERNET AS A PLANNING TOOL

Trained travel agents provide a professional personal service. "We now say our fee is like insurance," says Eliason. Experienced agents are busy five days a week, eight hours a day, versus a...

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