Travelers turn back to travel agents

Washington Post’s “Travelers turn back to travel agents” – This Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post ran a positive article, addressing the value of working with a professional travel agent. ‘Travelers turn back to travel agents’ notes that while for many years consumers saw travel agents as having “gone the way of the milkman,” today it’s a different story. As writer Nancy Trejos, explains, “[T]he travel agent has been given a reprieve. That’s because many vacations have become as hard to plan as the name of last year’s traveler-stranding Icelandic volcano was to pronounce. Natural disasters cause flight cancellations. Revolutions put tourist destinations off-limits. Airlines and rental car agencies confound with ever-increasing fees. And the Internet spews so much information that it manages to hurt consumers as much as it helps them. … Travelers are starting to need vacations from planning their vacations.” The article goes on to quote ASTA CEO Tony Gonchar as saying: ““Consumers are looking for specialists. They want a destination wedding specialist, an Africa specialist, a Puerto Rico specialist.”

Source: Washington Post