However, I am a big believer in reviewing procedures and vendors periodically to make sure we are still using good strategies. I'm not into changing things willy nilly for no good reason, but sometimes change is good. Other times it's good to confirm that what you're doing is already awesome.
In the case off travel, some parties at my company (including my boss) were wondering if we could save time and/or money by skipping the travel agency and booking things internally. This is certainly a fair thing to wonder, since there is a fee we pay every time we book a trip through our travel agency, and since there is a delay of varying length between when I submit a request and when I receive the reply from the agent. There are other cons, and pros as well. Here are the factors I recommend weighing when determining if a travel agency is a good choice for a given company.
When determining if a travel agency is a good choice for the company, here are some things to consider:
Basic Factors to Consider:
- How many trips you'll have to set up. This is key to determining the time commitment that would be needed to set up the trip internally.
- What kind of travelers you are setting up trips for. Are your coworkers savvy travelers who need little support to get from here to there, comfortable with handling the occasional chaos that my come up when traveling themselves? Do they just send you the flights and hotel they want and have you book it? These types of travelers are good candidates to book yourself. It also may make sense to book travel yourself if you have just a few travelers and need to be keeping close track of their schedules anyway. If, however, there are travelers who have to change their reservations several times, request several rounds of multiple flight schedule and hotel options before booking, are likely to need help in-the-moment when things get off-track on their trips, or do a lot of international travel to cities you are not familiar with, or if there are just a lot of people who travel for the company, the support of a travel agency can be quite helpful.
- If you have time to set up the trips and manage any travel-related administrative work. It may seem quick and easy to go online and book airline tickets. However there are many other tasks involved in managing company travel such as managing rewards points, keeping track of travel expenses, and sorting out visa logistics if you have international travel to set up, not to mention cancelling and rebooking reservations as needed. Time yourself to see how long it would take you to set up a basic trip, so you can use this data to calculate the approximate time you'd need to book travel internally.
- How likely are you and your coworkers to benefit from travel agency travel expertise and perks. The travel agency we use offers after-hours service, a monthly newsletter with useful travel industry updates and news, monthly travel and cost reports broken down by department, some special rates on hotels, and probably others I'm not thinking of at the moment! The travel agent also has a whole bag of tricks for booking travel, including using fake returns and vacation packages to save on costs. Of course the travel agent also spends his or her days steeped in booking travel, and has ready answers to many questions the rest of us (at least those of us who don't travel frequently) would probably have to research to come up with answers to.
- Do you have an excellent travel agent/agency available. Obviously this is key - if you can't rely on your travel agency, it is usually better to go without, or switch services!
Pros to Consider:
- When you can just submit requests to the travel agent and s/he will do all the leg work, it saves the company time. If you are very busy, this is awesome.
- A travel agency can manage all of your business travel rewards points accounts for you, and recommend good times to use them.
- If you have any international travel, their time and expertise is valuable. Visas can be complicated to arrange for, not to mention the further complication of booking international flights and all of their seating and scheduling options. Plus, international trips often require more research, booking hotels in other countries whose language you may or may not know...again, this could take a lot of time to do internally.
- Agencies generally have after hours service for mid-trip mishaps/changes – this service quality will vary between agencies; the one I use happens to be excellent.
- Expert opinions, recommendations, answers to questions.
- They come up with Delta Vacations packages and other cost-saving options for us
- Many travel agencies produce and provide monthly travel reports, and often travel industry newsletter with travel advisories and industry updates.
- Many travel agencies get special hotel (and other) pricing.
- Travel agency will often take responsibility for booking errors if applicable (this is an extremely rare eventuality in my experience).
Cons to Consider
- Agency fees. The agency I use charges a flat rate per trip. This includes all of the reservations, including any rebooking that may be needed.
- There may be a delay between the submission of the request and getting something booked, resulting in a price jump or in flights or hotel rooms no longer being available.This delay will vary with different agencies, and depending on how many requests they are responding to. The delay will have more impact for travelers who are wont to book at the last minute.
- In my experience, backup agents aren’t always as awesome as our main agent, which sometimes results in confusion or delays (in the case of my company, I suspect the issues would be similar or worse when an internal resource responsible for booking travel had time off).
- May not get best pricing for flights. This has been suggested by some of our employees, however in my research for the review we did not encounter the problem. When I did have time to check, often the travel agent had better pricing. This is worth checking out on your own and comparing what you find vs. what your travel agent finds (if you have an agent currently).
Now that you've considered all of that...
- Make an estimate of how many trips are booked, on average, per week or month.
- Time yourself to see how long it would take you to book a trip with no complications. Consider how much extra time may be required for rebooking and other additional time commitments, based on the types of travelers you would be supporting.
- Calculate the amount of time it would take to book internally, and determine if you have that much time available.
- Calculate the cost of booking internally based on the time you'd spend and your wage and compare it to the cost of the agency fees.
Now that you have all this data and information, hopefully it will be relatively clear to you which approach will work better for you and your company. If your findings suggest a change in procedure, it's time to plan that transition!
One other thing to keep in mind is that if, in theory, it seems like a travel agency would be helpful for your business situation but using an agent hasn't worked out for you in the past, it is worth getting recommendations for other agencies and trying them out. There is good service out there, waiting to be found!
Good luck and enjoy sending your coworkers (and potentially yourself!) around the country and/or world!
