Would you use a travel planner?

At_home_with_the_cookes

Hi,

 

I'm doing some research and would like to know if you would consider using a personal travel planner when booking a UK trip or holiday abroad?

 

I have considered becoming a travel agent a number of times over the years but I often find better deals that what I see from the likes of hays travel and other independent travel agents, saving hundreds if not, thousands of pounds.  I therefore don’t feel that I could promote a holiday at a much higher price than I know I could book myself and I would rather show people how to achieve this themselves at a fraction of the price.

 

I have always loved finding a bargain and saving money but also love to travel.  Over the years I've managed to create incredible family trip and holidays without having a large budget available.  I also enjoy planning so create detailed itineraries for our trips.  Many of our friends and family now ask for help when planning a trip which I'm happy to do and we share travel and money saving tips across our social media and website blog. 

 

Now I'm interested to know if this is something that I could turn into a viable business?

 

I'm thinking of charging a fee up front depending on holiday duration and needs, my services would include researching and planning trips for those that don’t have the time or knowledge, finding the best deals and crafting an amazing holiday.  I would then create a detailed itinerary to include suggestions for flights, hotels, transport, activities, hidden gems etc, along with providing tools such as packing lists all on one spreadsheet, I would provide al links to my research making it easier to book but wouldn’t handle any of the booking myself.

 

Would you consider this stress free way to plan your next adventure?

At_home_with_the_cookes

Hi All,

 

I'm doing some research and would like to know if you would consider using a personal travel planner when booking a UK trip or holiday abroad?

 

I have considered becoming a travel agent a number of times over the years but I often find better deals that what I see from the likes of hays travel and other independent travel agents, saving hundreds if not, thousands of pounds.  I therefore don’t feel that I could promote a holiday at a much higher price than I know I could book myself and I would rather show people how to achieve this themselves at a fraction of the price.

 

I have always loved finding a bargain and saving money but also love to travel.  Over the years I've managed to create incredible family trip and holidays without having a large budget available.  I also enjoy planning so create detailed itineraries for our trips.  Many of our friends and family now ask for help when planning a trip which I'm happy to do and we share travel and money saving tips across our social media and website blog. 

 

Now I'm interested to know if this is something that I could turn into a viable business?

 

I'm thinking of charging a fee up front depending on holiday duration and needs, my services would include researching and planning trips for those that don’t have the time or knowledge, finding the best deals and crafting an amazing holiday.  I would then create a detailed itinerary to include suggestions for flights, hotels, transport, activities, hidden gems etc, along with providing tools such as packing lists all on one spreadsheet, I would provide al links to my research making it easier to book but wouldn’t handle any of the booking myself.

 

Would you consider this stress free way to plan your next adventure?

eskbanker

There's a big difference between helping people who know you and running a business where you need to generate leads yourself, so even though the service might be useful to some, your key challenge would be making them aware of it!

Brie

Sounds like something a personal assistant might do for a busy business person or someone who is very well off.  Not sure how you could break into a market like that unless you know that sort of person already. 

It's not a service I would use as I'm not that well off and have time available.  But for a lot of others they would simply go and pick a holiday off a website and compromise if it's not as individual as they might like.  

As for a list of what to pack, well unless you know what I've got in my wardrobe you won't know what to list beyond the generic "X shirts, Z knickers".  It also doesn't take into account those that want to take everything and those, like me, that could travel for a couple of weeks with just a small carry on bag.  Passports, credit card, toothbrush,  mobile, knickers.  

MyRealNameToo

At_home_with_the_cookes said:

I'm doing some research and would like to know if you would consider using a personal travel planner when booking a UK trip or holiday abroad?

 

I have considered becoming a travel agent a number of times over the years but I often find better deals that what I see from the likes of hays travel and other independent travel agents, saving hundreds if not, thousands of pounds.  I therefore don’t feel that I could promote a holiday at a much higher price than I know I could book myself and I would rather show people how to achieve this themselves at a fraction of the price.

 

I have always loved finding a bargain and saving money but also love to travel.  Over the years I've managed to create incredible family trip and holidays without having a large budget available.  I also enjoy planning so create detailed itineraries for our trips.  Many of our friends and family now ask for help when planning a trip which I'm happy to do and we share travel and money saving tips across our social media and website blog. 

 

Now I'm interested to know if this is something that I could turn into a viable business?

 

I'm thinking of charging a fee up front depending on holiday duration and needs, my services would include researching and planning trips for those that don’t have the time or knowledge, finding the best deals and crafting an amazing holiday.  I would then create a detailed itinerary to include suggestions for flights, hotels, transport, activities, hidden gems etc, along with providing tools such as packing lists all on one spreadsheet, I would provide al links to my research making it easier to book but wouldn’t handle any of the booking myself.

 

Would you consider this stress free way to plan your next adventure?

How much are you thinking of charging? How much time are you estimating your typical 2 week trip would take you to research and produce the materials for etc?

Who is your target market? 

I'm struggling to imagine who would buy such a service... those on tight budgets probably wouldnt pay extra for someone to find links for them. For those with big budgets who do use personal services wouldnt then want the faff of booking it all themselves plus would probably expect a reasonable produced booklet rather than a spreadsheet. 

I know some who do similar but they are an end to end agent targeting mid net worth types as they need the large enough budgets to make it work... marketing in this segment is very expensive unless you have an ingenious way in to these people. Both bought a franchise though operate under their own branding.

Have you checked if you'll have any regulatory requirements? Dont know if you avoid the normal ones by recommending others to buy from but in my world (not travel) people that do that are caught in regulatory requirements too, though lighter than those that actually do the selling. 

At_home_with_the_cookes

Hi, Thank you for your reply, I initially thought that my prices would start something like £50 for a weekend break, £90 for a weeks holiday and £125 for a 2 week holiday.  
I already have platforms across all social media channels and a website blog where I share content relating to family, travel and lifestyle, we review days out, activities and holidays and share with our followers which have now reached around 30,000 combined across all platforms.  
Travelling, blogging and reviewing anything travel related is what I love to do so I'm always researching new places to visit, hotels, places to eat etc so I'm happy to keep my prices low with the hope that whilst I'm researching for a client I will be able to use my research and their feedback on the places that I recommend for future blogs. 
My target market is families similar to my own and my followers, where working full time and looking after the kids can consume so much time that spending time searching for the best deals and activities isn't always an option. 
I have a nice looking spreadsheet that i use each time i book a try for myself to store all of the details and itinerary but i have also created some PDF templates in Canva that i could use to make the final product look more appealing, its just not as easy to make changes if needed once sent out. 
I have checked with regulations and i don't believe that i would be affected by ATOL or PTR and wouldn't need to be covered by the FCA as i would essentially be an introducer and the client would then be booking through a company that is FCA approved.  I believe that it would work in a similar way to when i share affiliated links on Instagram. 

beckstar1975

I'm afraid that's the reason I wouldn't use this, I'd want ATOL protection from a package, else I'd just do it myself?

If things sold out between you recommending and them being booked would you offer to revise as part of your price? And prices can vary too so I'd be wary of prices being offered to the bookers being different to those offered to you necessitating more changes.

A couple of friends joined travel MLM type schemes that offered this kind of thing, both had jacked it in in a few months as the work required just didn't stack up against the returns.

At_home_with_the_cookes

beckstar1975 said:

I'm afraid that's the reason I wouldn't use this, I'd want ATOL protection from a package, else I'd just do it myself?

If things sold out between you recommending and them being booked would you offer to revise as part of your price? And prices can vary too so I'd be wary of prices being offered to the bookers being different to those offered to you necessitating more changes.

A couple of friends joined travel MLM type schemes that offered this kind of thing, both had jacked it in in a few months as the work required just didn't stack up against the returns.

Thanks for your reply, its hard to get across what I really want to offer but essentially it is assisting people to get the best deals possible, sharing tips and insights about things that they hadn't thought of and yes I would help until they were happy with what they had booked. 

I am always asked about how I do it as we create amazing holidays whether its booking a package deal or something separate, there are other ways to achieve ATOL protection e.g. booking flights and car hire together if that's important to someone.  

As an example with a few of our recent trips, we were quoted £2,500 per person for 4 nights in Las Vegas with tickets to the sporting event that we were going to so for our family of 4 the quote would have been £10,000 but by booking it ourselves we manage to achieve a 12 night holiday starting in LA for 3 nights, with a road trip to Las Vegas where we spent 8 nights and then onto Arizona and the Grand Canyon for 1 night, flights hotels and car hire came in at under £2,700 for all 4 of us and with tickets to the main attractions that we did it was still under £4,000.  
We spent a week in Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland with all activities included for less that the price of a one day return Lapland trip being offered by a number of travel companies.

I'd love to help others create dream holidays like these at a fraction of the price.

strawb_shortcake

My friend has become an online travel agent, it does feel like an MLM but they seem to do well out of it and claim they save a lot more on their own holidays - it's all commission based. 

I'll either use a travel agent or book it myself, adding a 3rd party wouldn't be for me it feels like it's just adding a further layer of costs despite what saving you may claim you can achieve