Rediscover the value of a professional consultant

When I tell new acquaintances I operate a national travel agency, they often share their own travel tales, which usually fall into one of two categories. They tell me how their last trip involved a time-consuming, frustrating hunt for online deals, resulting in mediocre accommodations, poor service or hidden fees. Or, they describe how their trip was an amazing, memorable experience because they discovered a little-known destination, a secret beach or some ‘only the locals know’ spot.

I’m proud that, as the President of Merit Travel, I’m immersed in delivering the second scenario to Canadian travellers every day. And, while today’s travel industry is dominated by discount travel websites and booking apps that often produce scant savings and disappointing trips, I’m glad that many travellers are realizing the value of consulting with a travel advisor to get the best travel experience for their budget.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a deal as much as the next guy. My concern is that much of the travel industry is focused on facilitating transactions (the cheapest flight, hotel or rental car), often wrapped in eye-popping, lowest fare promises. The industry has largely turned its back on providing genuine guidance to travellers setting off to unfamiliar destinations. While the Internet has given consumers self-serve booking tools, the result is often ‘information overload,’ and opaque, ‘buyer-beware’ details that a traveller must decipher. 

Sadly, many traditional travel agents began emphasizing ‘one size fits all’ holiday packages to compete with online travel sites.  The result: travellers spend hours searching websites for deals or they find themselves boxed into a standard tour package offered by an overworked agent who is influenced by commissions or marketing hype from big tour operators. That was then, however, travellers now have sunnier horizons to look forward to.

Elevating travellers’ investment and experiences

If searching endlessly for tempting but disappointing online deals makes you think it’s time for a staycation, don’t despair! I’m happy to report that there is now resurging demand among savvy travellers for personalized travel planning, and a new breed of travel firms is focused on delivering customized travel experiences. And – best of all – it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to access such tailored service. 

This may surprise travellers who thought that full-service agencies were an endangered species. But speaking for my own organization, our travel consultants – who are located in communities across Canada – are focused on building relationships with our clients, to add value to every trip, and elevate our customers’ travel investment and experience. 

I was honoured to be named among Canadian Traveller Magazine’s ‘Top 40 Under 40’ leaders in the Canadian tourism industry. The award recognized our company’s focus on bringing professionalism to the industry. As the leader of Merit Travel, I work every day to empower our team to elevate our clients’ travel experiences. We hire and train top talent to become unmatched experts on far-off destinations, from African safaris to escorted culinary tours, to long-stay vacations around the globe. I instill in the team my strong belief that travel has the power to broaden horizons and change lives for the better, and I’m passionate about the work we do to bring those life-changing experiences to more people. 

Creating customized travel experiences for all budgets

Another surprising fact for the travelling public is that our brand of high-touch travel planning isn’t only for big spenders. While we do serve discerning travellers who appreciate how we save them hours of time and create better quality travel, our consultants also work with many Millennials who come to us with limited budgets. Many have worked and saved hard for a once-in-a-lifetime trip and they want the best possible trip for their investment, one that isn’t just based on lowest-cost offers or outdated information on the web. We help them make their money go further, while creating those truly unique travel moments I mentioned above.

Even veteran travellers decide to rediscover the value of a travel consultant when I tell them about the details our travel consultants can handle to make their journeys stress-free and more enjoyable. For example, they are amazed when I tell them about a recent trip to Turkey when we were whisked through airport passport control by a VIP escort in minutes and led on a relaxed private tour of the Hagia Sophia mosque, after enjoying tea and cookies with a guide just steps away from this chaotic tourist shrine. They are even more surprised to learn that any traveller could arrange such details, but very few know how to do so. That’s the real benefit of letting a professional travel consultant design your vacation with you. 

So, while I am sometimes disheartened to hear that travellers have poor experiences due to the broader industry’s self-serve, lowest-price orientation, I’m happy that more people are seeing the merit of working with a travel consultant. That means I hear more travel tales with happy endings from people who can’t wait to set off for their next dream destination.