It was the end of a beautiful day when Caroline Breton, who was on vacation in Sorrento, Italy, realized that the boat that was supposed to take her back to her hotel wasn’t going to show.
Instead of panicking, she called her travel agent, who immediately organized a ride off the island back to the hotel.
“The boat didn’t show up at four o’clock when it was time to come back,” Breton says. “He said he’d be there by then, and by five, we’re like, ‘OK, his boat’s not coming.’ So I got a hold of (the travel agent). She arranged for a different transport. All costs were covered and I realized I could have figured it out myself, but it was so nice to have somebody looking out for me and who made it work and organized. I didn’t have to worry.”
Breton’s experience is emblematic of a growing trend in the Canadian traveller’s mindset: though online booking is convenient and works well for straightforward trips, when it comes to a stress-free, well-planned vacation, travel advisers are your secret weapon.
While tour operators, reservation services and travel agencies took a hit during the COVID pandemic when travel was restricted and countries closed their borders, a recent Statistics Canada study found that Canadians are not only back to booking travel, they’re using travel agents or advisers despite the popularity of online travel booking.
The study found that out of all three industries, travel agencies had the strongest recovery, exceeding pre-pandemic levels by 11.6 per cent in 2023 with a total operating revenue reaching $2.8 billion in 2023, a 55.5 per cent year-over-year increase.
Travel agents aren’t just for luxury travellers — agents can tailor experiences to fit any budget, ensuring a smooth, enjoyable journey.
Erminia Gallina, the director of sales at Air Canada Vacations, says there’s a misconception that it’s more expensive to use an agent, adding that when life is hectic, using one can make sense.
“The expertise, to the in between, to the followup, I think most consumers are starting to understand,” she says. “And like you pay any person that’s a professional in their field, then why would it not be the same when it comes to a (travel) adviser?”
Scam prevention
While travel booking sites are a great starting point, advisers bring expertise when it comes to crafting personalized itineraries, stretching your dollars, and stepping in when things go sideways, saving you time and hassle and even helping you to avoid travel scams, like the rental you booked but doesn’t exist, says Richard Smart, CEO of the Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO), a not-for-profit responsible for administration and enforcement of the Ontario Travel Industry Act.
Smart says scams in the travel industry have gotten more difficult to recognize. “These days, with affordability being such a challenge for everyone, the pricing scams that you come across that you know look too good to be true are likely not, but they’re so sophisticated in representing themselves, as valid travel agents, people are susceptible to those sorts of scams.”
Crisis management
That kind of expertise, contacts and knowledge is why people reach out to Francesca Spizzirri, a travel journalist, travel designer and owner of Travelista73. She’s had to rearrange and reorganize trips for her clients due to illness, strikes and flight cancellations.
“I cannot tell you how many hours we lose to just sitting on the phone waiting for assistance to make changes or anything else that our clients need,” she says.
One client planned a family trip to Sicily that included a marriage proposal. The day before they were leaving, Mount Etna erupted and flights to Catania were cancelled.
“He calls me frantic because Air Canada cancelled their connecting flights and there were no other flights available,” Spizzirri says. “I had not booked his flights as he went online and booked them himself. Within 15 minutes, I had arranged for the owner of one of the companies that does my transportation to personally escort his family from Rome to Sicily by car to make sure that his family arrived there, so that the next day the proposal could go through.”
Travel agents not only provide a detailed trip itinerary to their clients, they’ll also work behind the scenes to ensure a smooth experience. Spizzirri will check on hotel reservations the day before her clients check in.
Staggered costs
Breton says she liked that the boat trip was paid for before she even left Canada. “So on the boat trip, I didn’t have to worry about anything. I had a bit of cash to tip people, but I didn’t have to carry credit cards or all of that with me,” she says.
When you work with an agent, you often don’t have to pay everything at once. You can put a deposit down, then pay everything before you leave, so your entire trip is already paid for before your plane leaves.
“Staggering the cost and having things paid at a different time also helps,” she says.
Doing the research
“What a lot of people don’t realize is that when you use Google, once you click on something, whether it’s a destination, a hotel, a restaurant, it thinks you want to see that, and Google’s job is to get you to click on things,” says Devyn Perry, the owner and operator of Devyn Perry Travel, who rebooked the boat so Breton could return to her hotel that afternoon.
“So a travel agent can show people an unbiased sort of ecosystem of what all the choices are that exist that makes sense for them, taking away what Google thinks they want to see. That sort of research piece, I think, is of huge value.”
Both Perry and Spizzirri say that every customer’s trips are unique and agents can narrow down flights, accommodations and even book activities. You can request that an agent locate hotels near the city centre with good Wi-Fi because you have to work during your trip, or you need them to book tickets to the major local tourist attraction you want to visit.
Travel agents provide multiple options but not an endless amount, so their clients aren’t overwhelmed by the decision paralysis that can happen when booking through websites.
So what’s the cost?
You’d think all of the expertise and personalization must mean paying a large fee to work with an agent. But that’s not always the case. Perry doesn’t charge her clients a fee. She says she does receive commissions from hotels.
“Everyone pays us commission,” she says. “So there’s no benefit to choosing one resort or another, because every single resort pays commissions to travel agents as part of their revenue model.”
Spizzirri does charge a fee of $500. She says that many agents are working in the hopes that somewhere down the line they’re going to make some commission.
“What happens is the commission margins keep becoming smaller and smaller. I think what happened was COVID taught everyone in the industry that our time is valuable, because if we do not collect a service fee, who’s paying us for our time?”
For Breton, working with an agent removes some of the stress that comes with travelling. “If you need help, there’s somebody there to help you, and for me, it was a big reassurance,” she says.
“When we were in Capri and I started panicking, wondering if we were going to be stuck here overnight, because I’m sure the boats don’t run all night, so how are we getting back? Then it was no, don’t worry, Devyn’s got this. And especially as I’ve travelled quite a bit as a woman alone, I have that extra security.”
