Owlnotes.com

Corporate travel agents only deal with business travel, as opposed to leisure travel. I arrange air travel, hotels, car rentals, meeting services, and ground transportation for the business traveler. The corporation is generally paying for the business traveler so price is not as much of an issue as it is for a vacationer looking for the lowest price. A business traveler has to be at a place at a certain time and they are not always looking for the best deal.

Most of my work is done on the phone or by email. There is very little paperwork. A travel agency has contracts with different businesses. Some are small with only a few travelers a year, while some are much larger and have hundreds of travelers traveling every week or every month. Our company tries to get the best deals by enticing airlines to give certain discounts and incentives to those who travel.

In the business travel industry there are a couple. I work as a senior travel consultant which means I have experience with domestic and more complicated international travel. I take care of the larger and more important corporations that we handle. There are also those who do group or meeting travel. Although I don't do those, I help out when needed. In addition, there are quality control agents within our department. They take care of fine tuning whatever itinerary you have planned in order to ensure you have everything you need before a ticket is issued. There are a couple of supervisors and another customer service department that takes care of problems we might be having.

Yes. There are always problems along the way and it is not as simple as just booking a trip for someone. There are delays for many reasons, like bad weather or mechanical problems, and the person needs to get a new flight right away. Sometimes you go out of the realm of your responsibility to contact somebody that you've known outside the industry to help out with the situation, and you go above and beyond what you are normally supposed to do. You have to care about this person. To tell someone you can't do anything even though it is not your fault is just not enough. Morally, you have to do something. Because I have had many years of experience and I have traveled, I know the pitfalls. I can actually empathize with these people and do more than I have to do. Also, because I have changed agencies a few times and because I have had airport experience, I can call on former friends and contacts to help out in certain situations that other travel agents might not have access to. For example, I have friends at a major airline where I used to work and my husband works there. If a client is traveling on that airline I can do much more for them, like get special upgrades or lounge opportunities. They are perks that person wouldn't have gotten if he or she hadn't used my agency.

I would never have chosen this as a career. When I was working at the airport, travel agents had a reputation of being our "worst enemy." We always thought that they were lying to their clients and we at the airport had to fix their mistakes. I never had much respect for the industry, but when I left the airport I wanted a position within the travel industry. I thought that this might be a good path for me. After working at the airport, I had an opportunity to work as an on-site agent where I would only work for one corporation that was handled by my agency. I enjoyed that a lot. When they closed I went somewhere else.

I worked there for twenty years, and I decided to retire in order to raise my children. I chose not to go back because I needed a change, but I knew I wanted to remain working in the travel industry.

I started out in leisure travel and corporate travel at the same time, and I found leisure travel was a lot harder. Vacation travelers are on a budget and they always want advice as to where to go. Because they don't want to pay a lot, it is more difficult to find the perfect place for them. They will go so far as to blame you if the weather is bad or their room is facing the wrong way. Meanwhile, they didn't want to pay for a better location.

The commute to the airport was too long, and I wanted to work closer to home. I enjoy working in the travel industry and working with people, and this was the next best way to do that. While working at the airport I took classes on how to deal with the public. I have learned to deal with very difficult customers, and I almost make it a game to calm somebody down and leave them satisfied. It just makes you feel good. Also, when I first went to work in this industry I was able to work four days a week and still make a decent salary. I switched agencies a few years ago because my current agency was closer to home. I make less here, but I traded convenience for money.

The office is casual, but we wear business attire. The department is broken up into a cube format, although there are two to three of us in each cubicle. We get along well because we are all sharing the same experience. The building is broken up into different departments which include corporate, leisure and cruise travel, accounting, executive management, and information technology.

My department alone has five teams. Within each team we handle different corporations, but when a phone call comes in we don't put the person on hold. The call goes to whoever can help.

One fun thing about the travel industry is that I don't think one day is ever the same as the next. It is a different scene every day. The beginning of my day is sort of normal. I come in at 9:30 a.m., and before I log in my phone I check emails that came in overnight. I print what I need to do for the day. I check my queue, which has pending transactions, and I see if anything needs immediate attention. Things happen in this industry over night that could change your whole day. I can have people overseas who are stuck or need to change something, so I prioritize what I need to do before I begin taking calls.

Some are normal calls where someone is calling to book a flight but then the next call can be a total disaster. There can be somebody who was stuck on the runway, and now their flight is canceled and they are going back to the gate. I have to hurry to accommodate the person before everyone else on the plane gets off and occupies the agents at the airport. You never know what each phone call will bring. It could be something that may take up an hour of your time. Some of it is satisfying and some is totally frustrating. Over the years you learn from previous experiences what you can and cannot do. It is really disappointing when you have to tell someone you can't do anything for them.

Yes, I think it does. It is not supposed to, but it is only human nature to want to help the friendlier person and not someone who is rude and selfish. It is a people-person kind of thing. It's unfortunate but true, and it often dictates how far you will go.

It can wreck your day. When you have to spend so much time with one person you are unavailable on the phone, and the brunt of the work falls on your teammates or vice versa. You can be taken off the phone lines for over an hour just to deal with one client, but you have to do whatever you can to help them. Some agents are better at it than others. Some waste too much time on trying to do something that is just not possible, and then other work falls on me.

I can go three days without any and then get three in a row on one day, which is horrible. Every day is different and every situation is different. Calls from overseas are always the worst, because there is a time difference and the phone call can cost a lot for the person. The most frustrating thing about emergency phone calls is trying to contact an airline. You can't keep someone in Singapore on hold while you are trying to reach an airline.

The salary can vary by thousands of dollars. There is no commission from the airlines any more and agencies have to charge fees, which people don't like. Ten years ago you could get more money than you can get now. I started my current job at two years ago at $35,000. I left my previous travel agency making $42,000.

I wanted to work closer to home and the better paying travel agency jobs were too far away. Also, the industry is not paying what it used to. Perhaps if you worked in Manhattan you could make around $60,000, but I don't want to deal with the long commute. My lifestyle has changed a bit. I don't have extra money, but I am looking forward to retirement.

Yes. Travel benefits like discounted rates at hotels, and terrific deals for vacations. Generally those vacation benefits go to the vacation travel agent. We sometimes get discounted or free airline tickets. It's not what it used to be. We can get insurance benefits, but you still have to pay for them. Fortunately enough, I am on my husband's insurance plan.

I work 9:30a.m. to 6 p.m. five days a week with Saturday and Sunday off. We are open between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. We try to stagger our lunch hours so there is always coverage. Often I am there past 6 p.m. because I have gotten involved in a situation late in the day, but there really isn't any overtime. We have an after-hours service that travelers call after we leave. As for vacation time, I only get one week a year because I have only been there for two years. The last agency I worked at I automatically received three weeks off a year. Different offices offer different amounts of vacation time.

I know what I am doing, and I am comfortable with making decisions and working without supervision. I love the camaraderie of having several people in the office when we all share the same experiences. I think it's better than being an accountant where you crunch numbers or being a sales person. Also, you don't take your job home with you. That is probably one of the best things about the job.

No. There are other jobs like working for an airline which involves the same type of experience working with people and having a different day each day. I am not in a point in my life where I want to go to another level.

The worst part is dealing with rude and selfish customers, many who demand things that just can't be done. However, it is very satisfying when you can turn somebody around and get them on your side.

That is probably one of the biggest things that has happened. It has cut in half the need for travel agents because people can do what they need to do online. Sometimes, they can get better deals than we can and they don't have to pay an agency fee. I would say people under 60 would rather use the Internet and people over 60 aren't as comfortable and still call the agency. The reason that there is so much corporate business is not because they can't use the Internet, but because the company wants reports of the traveling their employees do. They have a credit card for the company, and the company can ask for information like how many trips one person has taken in a year, or how much money one department has spent. They wouldn't be able to track this if the traveler was just using the Internet.

Certain airlines only allow you to book on their website, so we have to do that too. The agency still charges a fee to the traveler or company, however. It's a little frustrating but it is a fact of the industry. I am learning more and more ways to do things every day. It takes more time to book on the Internet because there are certain standards we have to take care of in the itinerary .

Most people in this business are older. There is not much job security because of the Internet. It is cheaper for travelers to book trips themselves. More agencies are closing than opening. Corporations are always looking to sign a contract with the cheapest agency. We just lost a huge corporation and now we may have to cut three people because the company provided us with so much work.

The goal is to always try to get the cheapest price, but it doesn't always work that way because the traveler has to leave and return specific times. You can offer half the price if they take connecting flights or go from different airport, but they usually don't want to do that. The potential is that you can lose customers for not getting the best price, but serving them can require a compromise. You have to lay out their options.

You are always in competition to offer the best discounts or the lowest fees. In the corporate department we have contracts with a lot of corporations. There is a lot of competition within this industry. It doesn't seem to be loyalty; it just seems to be bottom line. My agency does seem to have a good reputation. It is the largest agency on Long Island. We do have a sales department that is constantly going out to recruit new business. The ones that give you volume are the best kind of businesses to have. They seem to take up less of your time than the little ones.

Living in New York, we assume that everyone travels and has a passport, everyone knows where they want to go, and everyone has a computer and the Internet. We forget that a majority of the people in the U.S. haven't been out of the country. Working as a travel agent in a rural area as opposed to metropolitan areas may be a good thing, though I don't think there is much future in the industry itself.

I would suggest working for a major airline, because there is room for advancement, the salaries are better, and the experience itself is better.

More importantly than technical training is people skills, which is something you gain through experience and certain kinds of training courses that teach you how to deal with people in person and over the phone. You need to learn how to be assertive without being aggressive. You can turn a conversation around just by having a friendly and up-beat voice. You can't be subservient. You have to be in control of the conversation but still let them think that they are in control. I have seen people quit because they had difficulty dealing with rude clients, but I think that is largely their own fault.

Not really. I guess I would have liked to have known that the commissions were going to be reduced and eventually taken away. Years ago it was a booming and profitable business.