[nabentre] Article: ASTA Hits Back at Article Saying Travel Agents Have “Useless Jobs”

[cheryl echevarria]

Good morning all I am posting this on a few lists because they have to do with Travel and Tourism, working in the field as a Travel Professional, so Job, as well as the Entrepreneur Division, because that is what I am. I own my own Business.
In the recent month travel professionals have been hit left and right. Starting last year with President Obama say that "Travel Agents went the ways of the Dinosaurs", um, the white house has people who do his job for him, so how would he know.
In fact, his people has to do the same thing I have to do for my clients. research locations, arrange the travel, contact local embassies sometimes or Department agencies, especially if I am working with us the blind, whether it is to find out about accessible travel, independent travel, what kind of laws they have in reference to traveling with a guide dog.
So one and so forth. It is not just sitting here and booking someone travel.
I also have to travel as many times as possible and no it isn't free to do.
Women's Day and now Careercast.com has gone after travel professionals.
I belong to ASTA, American Society of Travel Agents, which I have been a member of since I started my business back in 2009. It is the NFB of the Travel Business.
Educating and Advocating for us the travel professionals as well as our clients in Washington and Local State related travel issues.
But anyway here is the article for yourself to read.
ASTA Hits Back at Article Saying Travel Agents Have “Useless Jobs”By Mimi KmetAugust 25, 2013 5:48 PMASTA has responded to an article appearing last week on CareerCast.com that lists travel agents among a group of what it calls “useless jobs” alongside occupations like sign spinners and data entry clerks.
In the article, “When All Else Fails, Consider a Useless Job,” author Kyle Kensing writes that technology has rendered the travel agent job useless. “Planning a trip today is a do-it-yourself endeavor: you can book accommodations, transportation, discover restaurants and entertainment, and navigate your route all online,” the article says. “Thus, the traditional travel agent is no longer necessary.” One the other hand, the article adds that specialized travel agents, who plan unusual or exotic trips, have “created a niche that has turned a useless job into a profitable one.”
Calling the article “an assertion as insulting as it is inaccurate,” Paul Ruden, ASTA’s senior vice president-legal and industry affairs, said CareerCast.com “might have considered doing basic research on it.” To set the record straight, he said, “travel agents have fully embraced new technologies and serve consumers through both specialized professional travel distribution technology, not available to consumers, as well as Internet-based tools.”
Ruden added that as of the end 2012 about 8,000 U.S. travel agencies were employing 105,000 people. Those agents handled 143 million transactions totaling $86 billion in air travel (64 percent of the market). “While online agents account for a lot of that business, so-called traditional agents actually sell about half of it, in addition to the vast majority of the $15 billion worth of cruises (64 percent) and $9 billion in tour packages (66 percent),” he said.
Ruden also contradicted the article’s assumption that a travel agency job is unrewarding, pointing to a 2011 “Oprah” segment that counted travel agent job among the “Happiest Jobs in America.” Travel agents’ inclusion on that list is due “in part to the amount of social interaction these professions offer,” he said.
The CareerCast.com article is the second one this summer to knock the travel agency profession. A few weeks ago, Woman’s Day posted an article called “10 Things Travel Agents Won’t Tell You,” which prompted angry responses from ASTA, Travel Leaders Group and other travel agent organizations, as well as individual travel professionals. In addition, a recently released ARC study that found that traditional travel agencies outperform mega-agencies and online travel agencies like Expedia and Priceline.



Disabled Entrepreneur of the Year 2012 of NY StateLeading the Way in Independent Travel!
Cheryl Echevarria, Ownerhttp://www.echevarriatravel.com631-456-5394reservations@echevarriatravel.comhttp://www.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com

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