How Do You Become a Travel Agent? A Step-by-Step Guide to Turning Wanderlust into a Career

• Travel

For those who enjoy discovering new worlds, planning out-of-this-world trips, and getting to share the thrill of travel with fellow adventurers, a career as a travel agent can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not only can it bring thrilling possibilities worldwide, but also a flexible and rewarding career. Here are a few tips for becoming a travel agent.

Learn About the Job of a Travel Agent

Before diving in, let’s take a look at what modern travel agents do. Those packaged tours and paper tickets are a thing of the past. Agents now are specialists who provide tailored planning, insider advice, and concierge-style service for vacations, business trips, cruises, destination weddings, group travel, and more.

Travel agents help clients choose the best mode of travel based on their demands and affordability, book and modify, and typically receive perks and upgrades that are not available to the public. In short, they make traveling easy and worthwhile.

Find the Right Method

There are various methods of being a travel agent. Others pursue official training courses or certifications, while others begin by connecting with an experienced host agency. Selecting a route is based on your objectives, budget, and the amount of time you would like to spend in order to get started.

One of the easiest and most tested paths is through a site such as Global Travel. A leader in home-based travel agency businesses, Global Travel has empowered tens of thousands of individuals to create highly profitable travel side hustles from home—with or without experience.

By joining with a hosting agency such as Global Travel, you have access to robust booking tools, training programs, supplier connections, and marketing materials at the cost of operating an old-fashioned agency. You can begin developing itineraries for your network on day one.

If you take the solo approach, you have to invest time and resources in learning individual courses or certifications. However, when you are part of an agency such as Global Travel, all these learning materials are part of the experience. From travel fundamentals to sales and marketing, they give you a formal structure to learn and establish confidence.

Choose a Specialty (Optional but Strongly Suggested)

While it’s certainly possible to be a generalist, the most successful agents are specialists in a niche—luxury cruises, honeymoon vacations, Disney vacations, or international adventure travel being a few such examples. By specializing, you can distinguish yourself within an overcrowded marketplace, better serve your customers, and develop relationships with targeted travel suppliers.

Begin Booking and Establishing Your Business

After training and preparation, it is time to begin booking travel and establishing the client base. To start with, this will be friends and family. Eventually, word of mouth, social media, and internet marketing can be relied upon to establish the business. It is the perfect opportunity for those