Become a Home Based Travel Agent

Interview with Chris Parker, Vice President of Partners In Travel
By Joanie Ogg CTC, MCC

We strive to not only offer our agents the tools and resources they need to build and maintain their travel business, but to provide them with top notch customer service and support as well. Most of our support team members have been travel agents themselves, so they know the industry and understand the opportunities and challenges a home-based agent faces. Unlike many of the larger host agencies out there, we get to know our Partners on a personal basis and help them come up with ideas and solutions to benefit their individual business.

If you were a home-based travel agent, how would you aim to grow your business?

I would encourage any home-based agent to develop a niche and specific expertise in the travel industry and build their business on that. I also suggest travel agents focus on group travel as a great way to increase their revenue. All of our Partners have access to book into All Aboard Travel’s exclusive packages and group rates, making it easy for them to arrange a custom group cruise. Agents should make contact with affinity groups in their communities that may want to organize a special cruise for their members or even hold their annual meeting or conference onboard. We provide marketing material such as customized flyers and four color brochures to help our agents promote these special cruise packages to their own clients.

We are part of the Travel Leaders Leisure Group division of Travel Leaders Group (formerly Carlson Leisure Group) and have been a host since 2002. Travel Leaders Group is composed of more than 1,700 travel agency locations, along with loyalty travel fulfillment and call centers, in the United States and Canada, and serves millions of individual corporate and leisure travelers. In 2009, Travel Weekly placed Travel Leaders Group in the top 10 of its Power List of America’s travel sellers.

Other powerful travel brands within Travel Leaders Leisure Group include All Aboard Travel, Cruise Specialists, CruiseDeals.com, SinglesCruise.com, Cruise Holidays, and our wholly-owned Travel Leaders offices. Being part of the large Travel Leaders Group organization allows us to provide our agents with fantastic supplier relationships and superior commission structures.

We offer several robust technology programs to meet the needs of today’s productive agent. Our proprietary reporting system, TravelConnect, manages clients, bookings, commissions, groups, financials and much more. TravelConnect allows agents to report their bookings, generate invoices and produce sales and commission tracking reports. Agents also have access to our Sabre Cruises tool, where they can review and book cruises from 13 cruise lines all in one convenient place. Agents can use this tool to view fares, commissions, negotiated and group rates, itineraries, and special services for each of our participating cruise vendors to help match their clients with the right cruise for them. In addition, we provide all of our agents with their own hosted web site that they can customize to their preferences.

We offer a three day comprehensive overview training for agents who are new to the industry. We also offer ongoing training and education opportunities to help our contractors manage and increase their business such as weekly live webinars, Fam trips, and an annual convention. Recent webinar topics have included product updates from cruise lines and tour operators, as well as training on technology, basic computer skills, customer service, super star selling and marketing techniques.

We offer a commission split program of 70, 80 or 90 percent, or our Partners can choose to keep 100 percent of their commission by paying an all-inclusive monthly fee.

· 70/30% commission split- no monthly fees for the month of March for a new agent

· 80/20% commission split - $69 a month for one agent, $10 per month for each additional agent on their contract

· 90/10% commission split - $139 a month for one agent, $30 per month for each additional agent on their contract

· 100% Commission Program - $299 a month for one agent; $50 per month for each additional agent on their contract

During the month of March, an agent can join our commission split program without paying any sign-up fees, and will even pay no monthly fees if they choose to join the 70/30 commission split program. There is a one time initial set up fee of $349 when an agent joins our 100% program.

Joanie Ogg CTC MCC
Joanie Ogg Marketing Group
Editor

Joanie Ogg is a thirty-five year veteran of the travel industry and has been involved with the independent contractor evolution since 1988. She is the principal of Joanie Ogg Marketing Group, which specializes in consulting and speaking on the topic of Home-Based Travel. She also provides marketing and sales for wide variety of products under the umbrella HomeBasedTravelAgent.com.

A demonstrated industry leader, Joanie most recently served as the President of the National Association of Commissioned Travel Agents (NACTA) and TravelSellers. She and her husband Tom acquired NACTA in 1996 and sold it to The American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) in 2000. Joanie’s tenure in the travel industry includes owning and operating one of the first successful host agency models. She has owned and operated several storefront travel agencies (both commercial and leisure), as well as a Hawaii wholesale tour company.

Her decades of success have garnered her numerous accolades over the years. Her accomplishments have been recognized by receipt of two Lifetime Achievement Awards from major trade groups, being named as one of the “100 Most Powerful Women in Travel” by Travel Agent magazine on several occasions, voted as “Travel Agent of the Year” by the readers of Travel Trade magazine, and has been recognized by many other industry organizations throughout her tenure in the industry. In 2008 Joanie Ogg was inducted into the CLIA Hall of Fame, an honor held by some of the most influential executives in the travel industry.

Joanie is a Master Cruise Counselor (MCC) and a Certified Travel Counselor (CTC). Joanie has co-authored two popular travel industry books for cruise specialists and home-based travel agents and has authored hundreds of travel trade articles. She has inspired tens of thousands of travel agents attending her presentations at trade events, cruise seminars, international trade gatherings and numerous local educational venues throughout the United States. With a time-honored background and forward-looking vision, she is often featured as a speaker at many of the travel industry’s major conferences and events. Joanie’s speaking talents are widely sought as a travel industry emcee by the most recognized travel organizations. She has emceed such events as Cruise-A-Thons, ASTA’s CruiseFest, The Trade Show, The Travel Institute Forum and all of NACTA’s National and International Conferences.


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