If you are someone who goes incredibly wild in traveling and wants others to experience the same craziness, then you should consider becoming a “Travel Agent”. Honestly, we are not cracking a joke.
If you are someone who goes incredibly wild in traveling and wants others to experience the same craziness, then you should consider becoming a Cruise travel agent. Honestly, we are not cracking a joke about travel agency.
People travel for various rebellious reasons, like to reminisce romance, explore the undiscovered hot spots, and get lost in nature’s serenity. Whatever be the reason, the footsteps leave the doorstep with a big packed bag to experience life with a whole new perspective.
If you are intrigued enough already to kick-start your career as a travel agent, keep reading this article. Because the essence of this article introduces you to every flavor of carving out a successful travel agency.
Becoming a travel agent doesn’t cost a fortune; in fact, it brings a fortune at your disposal. Unarguably, nowadays, people madly prefer to book hotels and tours after such an extended quarantine period due to COVID-19. This situation serves as a gold mine to forming a running business for all those who want pleasurable voyages to be accessed by travel enthusiasts.
So, if you are speculating about whether to pursue your passion for traveling as a career or not, stick to this guide. After reading to the last dot, bets are you will already have come up with your own brand “tagline.”
Without dragging it any further, let’s delve into the crux of the discussion.
Steps To Build Your Own Travel Agency
Reaching the summit requires a ladder with persistent and unwavering steps. Thus, here is a step-by-step guide that will help you embark on a mission of coming up with your unique identity in the tourism business.
Start By Creating Your Travel Business Plan
If you are a complete novice to the jargon, you must be thinking: How, What Type, What Kind, and Why? Don’t worry. The rest discussion is a curtain-raiser to every question popping up in your mind.
Why?
You need a well-crafted business plan to help you map the particulars of your venture and unfold some unknown factors too. It will help you narrow down your goals and form an exclusively focused vision to keep going forward.
How?
Avoid making mistakes. There is no room for flaws.
A business plan is equally important, no matter the type of industry. However, you might not need a formal business plan if you don’t intend to seek investment funding or a loan for your business.
But we suggest you don’t skip this step since a business plan has been proven as the best aid to help you grow at an exponential rate.
What Type?
Here comes the most important question—what kind of travel agent do you want to become?
As you may start your travel agency either from home or ground up, your business planning process may vary the same way.
If you opt for a home-based travel agent, you will probably be searching for a host travel agency where you will serve as an independent contractor. In this category, your business plan will be straightforward, having no strings attached.
In the latter option, your planning process will be lengthy; however, you will have more flexibility as the business will be solely yours started from scratch. But before launching your entity, you need to do your homework, including but not limited to:
- preparing business planning at least a few months before actual company launch by
- exploring the market analytics
- attending industry events to understand the targeted audience and their needs fully
These steps will help you broaden your vision for your business and determine your market niche. Moreover, you will also get to know whether or not you should compete in the existing market and what it will take you to mark your presence.
What Kind?
The kind of business plan deceptively depends on the type of funds you are seeking. If you want to run a huge travel agency and are short of a substantial budget, you may end up seeking funds from angel investors. Here your business plan will be formal, comprising of the nitty-gritty of your business.
But if you want to cash your hard-earned savings and are not interested in external financial aid, a lightweight lean business plan will be the perfect fit for your business.
Since the travel industry is already saturated, a clearly defined plan and niche will help you outperform the rest.
Discover Your Niche
Here you need to discover what kind of travel business your local community or industry actually needs. As a matter of fact, everyone needs valuable services that create some difference in their lives and address their needs.
That typically means you need to conduct comprehensive market research of the tourism business. Here you will try to find whether you can fill the gap by introducing your vision to the market or not.
If someone is already offering honeymoon destination tourism packages, you will obviously not chase the same race. You will need some time to find your unique niche in the saturated luxury travel market, but once you have found it, your business is ready to outgrow.
Determine who you will compete with and offer your services. Research, in fact, thorough research is the key step here.
Develop Your Image As A Strong Brand
Once you are done with the two above steps, it’s time to develop a strong brand.
As we have already mentioned, the travel industry is saturated and competitive; you have no choice left except sustaining the competition with a well-developed brand.
Unique Digital Presence and Tagline
Here comes the need for a digital presence that brings heavy human traffic to your business. You need to think out of the box at this step. Question yourself, what as a visitor would you like to see on the travel agent website? What feel do you want to experience while navigating the same site? What kind of advertising material do you need to market your presence?
The answer to these questions will pave the path for you to emerge as a unique and strong entity. Moreover, this is the phase where you will be deciding the tagline for your brand. The tagline that speaks the notion of your brand. The tagline that glues to the audience’s mind and brings their feet to your agency!
Follow All The Legalities
This phase is not that nerve-racking for a travel agency business, unlike other businesses that require a lot of legal red tapes. Setting up a travel business is a fairly simple and easy-to-go process involving a few legalities.
Determine If You Require Licensing
In most regions, you are not required to have specific certifications or licenses. However, licensing requirements vary with countries and states.
For instance, if you are located in the USA, you don’t need to have a specific license for running a travel business. However, if you are a resident of Iowa, Hawaii, California, Washington, and Florida, you must have a Seller Of Travel Licence. Likewise, you need an Air Travel Organiser’s Licence if you are in the U.K.
Select Your Business Structure
Before any specific license, you need to have a general license before starting any type of business.
Here you need to decide on your business structure. You have two options; you can either opt for LLC (Limited Liability Company) or Corporate Structure.
When To Opt For LLC?
Initially, you will likely proceed as a Limited Liability Company as your starting goal will be to stand on your feet. Moreover, if you are not interested in going public or seeking formal investment, LLC will be your best bet then.
When To Opt For Corporate Structure?
The structure of your business depends upon your business plan and how you seek funding. If you want to seek external investment, starting a business as a corporation will be the right choice.
Name Your Business and Apply For A Federal Tax ID Number
Everything demands a unique identity. Whether it is a baby, a building, or a travel agency business. Naming a travel agency requires filing a DBA (Doing Business As). Here, you are also required to apply for a Federal Tax ID number that is otherwise also known as the Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN or FEIN).
Choose Your Funding Strategy
Budget is always the major constraint when planning to dive into a new venture. The initial costs are relatively low as you won’t need to purchase expensive equipment and luxurious space initially.
If you have opted to become a home-based travel agent, you have already saved huge on your savings as you will need no office space.
You have a lot of funding options available at your disposal. From personal to venture capital funding, you are surely going to get a lot of financial help.
Whether you are a small business or intending to become big, don’t forget to invest money in these things.
- Flyers
- Posters
- Business Cards
- Business Website
You Are Ready To Market and Launch Now!
You have successfully come to the point where you are ready to launch your unique travel agency. Unarguably, your major investments will go in marketing; however, it is something that you can’t afford to overlook.
As we all know, capturing an audience is the name of the game. And without a large audience base, you can’t sustain yourself in the competitive business landscape.
If you take the steps mentioned above into consideration, you are already ready to secure a place in the tourism world.
Now, it’s your turn to go wild in pursuing your passion of becoming a travel agent!
