State of travel agents: endangered species?
Not so long ago, prognosticators were cheerfully predicting the extinction of the live travel agent. He or she would be replaced by robots. Has it happened yet?
“Well, much like the vaunted Paperless Office and futuristic Hoverboard, this life-enriching, job-threatening technology still hasn’t — and may never— happen,” reports blogger Michael Valkevich in FastCompany.Com.
He said seven or so years ago, experts were predicting travel agents would be replaced by something called the Information Superhighway.
“Live travel agents deliver service that online travel agents have never been able to replicate much less replace, despite endless claims to the contrary,” he writes.
According to Fast Company, OTAs don’t deliver on the most basic expectation of a travel buyer: offering the best options based on price, schedule, and preferred vendor.
And one reason for that was evident during the volcanic ash crisis.
He writes:
“This is where the rubber meets the road, literally – when the next volcano explodes and your shoes stay glued to the ground, stuck in whatever far-flung limbo you happen to be, no computer is going to proactively re-book you or find you a hotel so you can avoid curling up indefinitely on the terminal carpet hoping to find a way to get home,” he says.
The author acknowledges that simple domestic roundtrip and a couple of hotel nights are how you might leverage solid online travel tools, for either business or personal travel. But where you cross the line is as you get into complex international or multi-destination trips, he says.
They often require multiple layers of vendor-biasing, tax and currency adjustment, services fees and many more complications.
As travel technology leaders have observed, when it comes to disappointing travelers, software is rarely the limiting factor. The technology powering OTAs is advanced e-commerce material.
“However, what’s driving them is a strategy that invests in sophisticated margin logic and multi-level algorithms to get you to see, click, and buy what they want you to,” he writes.
That’s where travel agents come in.
“You can stop sweating. Heck, here are people – live bodies! – who can actually find on their map the particular hole where you are marooned, which cancelled flight was yours, and what are your best hotel and trip options now,” he says.
The author acknowledges that most of his trips were bought online until a few years ago when someone recommended a travel agent. He has since gone back to agents to handle his multi-thousand-dollar travels just as he hires specialists to do his taxes.
“Frankly, I couldn’t be happier — I mean, about the live travel agent part. I’m clearly and justifiably bummed that Mattel never came through with the Hoverboard, though. (Isn’t everyone?)” writes Valkevich.
By David Wilkening
David
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