[Travelandtourism] Good news on the Health of the Home Based Travel Agency market for 2012 and beyond

[cheryl echevarria]

Reading my latest issue of Agent at Home Magazine that just came out. It looks very promising for our field.
Thank goodness for that.
With the growth of Home Based Businesses like your truly and for Anahit LaBarre and Maurice Shackelford, since we own our own Home Based Agenies, there is room for competition.
Since many people on this list and others have asked in the past about getting into this business, this is a good sign.
I would recommend prior to getting into our business there are some things that you should do first.
If you have great customer service skills, math skills, a great sense of humor, this is on your side.
No, you do not have to go to college and take Hospitality 101 to go into this business.  You do however, need to do a lot of reading, a lot of learning on your own, before you even open your mouth and say hey I am a travel agent.
You should definitely, if you have never been a travel professional, is to start out with a good and I mean a good host agency, there are plenty out there that are phony, and should look and check them out. Both Maurice and I started with hosts agencies, I just got away on my own, but there are draw back from leaving them as well. Meaning lower commissions, and you are your own boss.
That is a positive and a negative.
But you have to remember, and I am still trying to stick to my convictions, is to set your working hours for your customers and for you to relax and do the rest of your life.  Working from home, I get up at 6AM and sometimes not off the computer until 7pm, and my  house looks like a bomb went off, I know because my husband tells me so.
You also need to know, is that you are a travel agent, and you need to travel, again, trying to put that into my husband mind, but he says well we just came back from a cruise, well we are not cruise planners, we are travel agents.  We need to travel.
I say we, but it is me.  So, if you can find someone who wants to travel with you. That would be great.
Learn learn learn, I am still learning, I have just booked a few clients to italy and no nothing about it, accept for what everyone else knows about it, so I am reading up all about it.
You need to know what you are selling to sell it.
So don't let people say that the Travel Agent is dead, far from it.


Leading the Way in Independent Travel!

Cheryl Echevarria
http://www.echevarriatravel.com
631-456-5394
reservations at echevarriatravel.com

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