how to become atravel agent?

1. How To become a Travel Agent? www.pouted.com

2. Introduction • Maybe someone has a great circle of relationships and people are always coming to them and they say, "Why shouldn’t I get paid for doing all this research? I like doing it, but I could be making money." A lot of people get into their 50s and say, "You know maybe I’ll just start this as a part-time thing." Some are very successful at it. They can balance more than one life simultaneously. … If you have a family reunion and you have an affinity with travel, you will start talking to hotels, you will talk to airlines, resorts, maybe transportation systems. www.pouted.com

3. The school root • There are some travel schools out there. I don’t think that’s a good place to get training necessarily. That’s how a lot of people have started, but then they were able to go into a brick-and-mortar and file brochures, write tickets. There are few places to do that these days because so many brick-and-mortars are no longer available. "When I left the airline, I thought I knew travel. I knew nothing about travel," Smith said. "I knew how to get people on and off airplanes. It’s a totally different world." • . www.pouted.com

4. Knowing what you sell • It’s learning about a place and being effective in communicating about the place. … I have a wholesale business, which means a customer and/or another travel agent will call me and say, "What do you know about Costa Rica?" I have a guy I work with in Costa Rica. I send him a profile and budget. Here’s the time frames, what the clients are thinking of doing. He will come back with an itinerary. Then I go back to the client and say, "Here is what we can do." … www.pouted.com

5. Getting right • Find the honest, reputable organizations that will support you. Because if you don’t put those pieces together and it falls apart you better be prepared to make it a positive. Until you’ve had to do that it’s overwhelming. I had a guy this last week where the hotel dates got messed up. That shouldn’t be his problem. Even though it cost me money to fix it, I still retained the guy as a client. www.pouted.com

6. The value of credentials • Travel professionals can earn a slew of credentials to enhance their reputation, such as certification from the Cruise Lines International Association, which is important if you want to specialize in cruise packages. www.pouted.com

7. Finding business • That's the question every business is trying to answer. There's no silver bullet, and everybody has their own style. "I do mailers, I do emails, I do trade shows, I do consumer shows," Smith says. "It takes a lot of energy to garner people around. It's about relationships and referrals." www.pouted.com

8. For more informationwww.pouted.com www.pouted.com