GO PLAN: Fiona McCannreports on a travel agency that is seeing off competition from the internet
PLANNING A HOLIDAY should be pleasurable. But the hefty financial outlay and the hours researching destinations online, or queuing on the phone for a travel agent, can take the good out of it.
What if you had somebody on call 24/7 to plan your trip on a one-to-one basis from start to finish, even personally delivering your tickets to your home?
That's the kind of service Travel Counsellors is offering. Founded in 1994, the company has more than 900 full-time agents in seven countries. The three-year-old Irish arm turned over €12 million last year.
"Travel Counsellors is a retail travel company, and all of its advisors work from home under our licence and brand, and under our name," says Cathy Burke, its general manager in Ireland.
Agents have already cut their teeth at other agencies, with 10 years' average experience, says Burke. "We set them up so they can work from home with all of the facilities they would normally have had in a travel agency, like computer equipment and internal travel-company systems. They then find the customers."
The company has 33 agents in the Republic and 23 in Northern Ireland. "When they worked in a high-street shop they would have been restricted by an awful lot of things - by the opening hours of the shop and by what the company wanted to sell," says Burke. "With Travel Counsellors they are totally independent to sell whatever they feel is integral to their client. They basically work for themselves within our company, which means that they now can look after their clients at a time that suits their clients."
Voted travel agency of the year last year by Guardianreaders for the second year running, the company has kept expanding while other agencies have fallen prey to the rise in internet bookings.
"Because we're so big worldwide we have really good buying power. I've had loads of incidents where friends of mine have gotten tailor-made holidays cheaper from a Travel Counsellor than they would getting it themselves on the internet," says Burke.
How it works for the customer . . .
MADELEINE FLANAGAN has been using Travel Counsellor Gail Buckley for four years. The first holiday she booked through Buckley was a week in Mexico in a four-star all-inclusive hotel.
"It was one of the best holidays I'd ever had. The hotel was stunning, the food was excellent and Gail suggested a number of excursions that I could do, like going to see the Chichén Itzá pyramids," says Flanagan.
"I didn't have to do anything other than ring her and say: 'I've a week off, this is my budget, what can you recommend?' She came to my work with the tickets and a bottle of wine and explained everything to me."
For Flanagan the advice has been invaluable. "Gail is like a verbal Lonely Planet guide: she'll actually talk you through where you're going, why you should go there, why you shouldn't go there, what's good to see there, what to avoid."
When Flanagan decided to take a year off for an around-the-world trip, she booked with another agent, assuming, wrongly, that Travel Counsellors didn't deal with around-the-world tickets. Yet despite the fact that Flanagan had booked elsewhere, Buckley was still available with advice and support during the trip, even helping Flanagan book extra flights and assisting when her credit card was stolen.
"When I was in Rio de Janeiro I couldn't get a flight home, because you can't book online from Brazil unless you're a Brazilian national. She was able to advise me what to do."
. . . and the work-at-home agent
GAIL BUCKLEY, a travel agent for more than 12 years, joined Travel Counsellors in October 2005.
"I live in Naas, in Co Kildare, and I worked in Dublin for the same agency for 10 years. I had to commute, and when I started my own family I looked into starting out myself from home.
"But it costs quite a lot of money to set up for yourself. A recruitment agency that I'd been listed with contacted me about Travel Counsellors, and I was immediately interested."
With many of the initial costs of setting up on her own removed, she found herself free to work independently but with the support of a global company. "My aim is to make money for myself and have time off when I need it."
When it comes to time off, however, she is careful to arrange for another Travel Counsellor to be available for any clients who may need to contact her.
"We do have the buddy system going, so even when I'm away on a two-week holiday my clients can just phone in to my buddy," she says.
"Because we're here 24/7, if a client is abroad, or has any kind of an emergency, they know they can phone us and we are there, always contactable."
Buckley is proud of the personalised service she offers. "I deliver a lot of tickets to my clients," she says. "And I have no problem meeting up with clients. It's just more personal that way."