Demand For Traveler Advisors Increase As People Are Planning Their Travel

Anecdotal evidence and data suggest that the silver lining of hope finally appears from the pandemic’s dark clouds for the travel industry. With consumers, including many people who have never planned their trip with any travel agent before, are turning to them as people want to resume their vacation trips.

Some consortia are also seeing an increase in web traffic to their apps and websites. These websites are pertaining to advisor information and profiles for connecting to travel advisors.

Demand For Traveler Advisors Increase As People Are Planning Their Travel

Virtuoso said the inquiries through their website have already doubled between June and September 2020. There was an increase in the requests for connecting with a travel advisor by 50% in January from December. The website attributes this increase in the web traffic to the people having more money after staying at home for almost a year. This has heightened their interest to travel away from home with an increased interest in travel advisors. So, people are more interested in traveling.

There is more traffic to the agent profiler pages. These online profile pages are created by Travel Leaders Group (TLG). This increase is reported by Stephen McGillivray, TLG chief marketing officer and Brian Hegarty, vice president of marketing.

Many analysts have predicted that after the consumers start feeling confident once again. They will soon be moving to the advisors in helping them to plan the travel.

They will be giving credence to the thought, as said by McGillivray. This will dominate the uptick in various people searching for travel advisors, but factually, this is much more complex now. These things will require the need of the travel advisor.

The TLG has uses keyword analysis for leads through its website for gauging consumer sentiment. As Hegarty said, they have already used ‘Disney,’ ‘Cruise’ and ‘Europe’ in 2019.

This keyword analysis was done on more than 12,000 leads as per TLG. Since January 1, to paint a different picture of 2021 keywords like help, plan, complicated, confusing, hope, and please dominate this list. These popular terms indicate if a consumer is looking for a promotion or deal is no longer valid now.

In particular, the marketers of the TLG have mulled the term ‘please’ as per what Hegarty has said. This either means that the customer is more polite or is so confused by the rules surrounding the pandemic that they are asking from the advisors – ‘please help me’ as per what he said.

This also indicates more than pent-up demand, as per McGillivray.

He said that this is good news for the TLG and the entire travel industry as people are looking forward to traveling again and placing their reservations. This will be a booster for the entire industry.

The owner of Tara Hyland Travel, Tara Hyland, who is affiliated with the league city, Texas, said that soon consumers will be more drawn to the advisors. As complying and tracking different states or countries’ different rules is very confusing and time taking, she said.

The trip could turn into a disaster if things are done in the wrong way; hence professional guidance is much needed now to have a great and enjoyable trip as per what Tara said.

She also believes that travelers who plan their vacation have great difficulty in canceling trips and getting refunds after the pandemic will seek aid. They will require the advocacy and guidance of the advisors. Hence, a travel advisor is a need of the hour for all travel planners to enjoy their trips after a long time.