Friday, March 07, 2014
The Fall and Rise of the Travel Agent
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Friday, March 07, 2014 The Fall and Rise of the Travel Agent![]() Close family and friends scoffed at the idea, as if I just announced that I was becoming a blacksmith. After all, wasn’t it President Obama who suggested in a town hall meeting that travel agents were becoming obsolete? How could they possibly prosper against big-pocket online travel agencies (OTAs) like Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity, and Orbitz? There was just no need for them anymore, or was there? Since we opened our home-based travel agency, ActiveTravels.com, in May 2012, without benefit of advertising dollars or a marketing department, there has been a steady stream of traffic. At a recent breakfast at the Four Seasons Boston for travel agents, many people we met in that room said they had a banner year in 2013.
To read my entire essay on the role of the travel agent, just published in an academic journal by the Boston University School of Hospitality, please click here.
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