I tried to book what turned out to be an impossible business trip last week from Toronto to San Francisco and in the process accidentally discovered two important things. First, the revolution in online travel booking has made it more, not less, difficult for small-scale business travellers to make their sometimes complicated travel arrangements. And second, trying to book an impossible trip is an excellent, if time-consuming, way to find a good agent in a marketplace more concerned with volume than service.
Over the past decade, more than half the travel agencies in the United States have folded, and the situation isn't much better here. According to Douglas Quinby, a travel specialist at market research firm PhoCusWright, the advent of the online travel business has resulted in surviving off-line agencies going in one of two directions: Either they survive through sheer volume (à la Flight Centre), or they specialize.
“You no longer have general travel agencies,” Quinby says. “What you have instead are cruise specialists, tour specialists and corporate-travel management specialists.”
You’ve even got event specialists, agencies that will concentrate entirely on, say, World Cup trips.
But no one seems to be a small-business travel specialist. If you spend less than six figures on travel annually – the cut-off for the average travel management specialist – you fall between the cracks.
My impossible trip involved a 7:30 speaking engagement in Toronto one night and an 8:30 conference session in San Francisco the following morning. After trying and failing to find something online, I called a Flight Centre in my neighbourhood. After checking the same flights I’d checked, they told me it wasn’t possible. When I asked about alternatives – maybe flying somewhere nearby and taking a train or bus – they said they didn’t book trains or buses. So I went to Marlin, another national chain. Knowing there were no direct flights, I went straight to the train or bus option. The agent couldn’t help me. I called two more, both advertising themselves as corporate specialists – which is when I learned about the six-figure problem.
This was taking hours, and if I couldn’t make both engagements, I was going to have to cancel one soon. I had already looked for a directory or rated guide for agents, but couldn’t find one. Did I really have to just call blindly until I found someone willing to at least give it a shot?
As it turned out, yes. After it was all over, I spoke with Gary Ralph, who is in charge of communications and marketing for the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies, a body that represents about 40 per cent of agencies in the country. Though agency boosting is a big part of his job description, he readily admits it can be tough for a small-volume business traveller to find the right agent. He recommends a pop quiz when trying out potential agents.
“Design a few really good questions about whether they can save money for you, whether they’ll plan your trips so you don’t have to stay up all night in an airport – and if they can’t answer them, move on,” he says.
It’s as much about finding someone who will simply spend the time looking into your questions as it is about the answers they come back with. Mark them not only on facts, but on creativity, originality and effort. Ralph suggests looking out especially for tips the agent can’t possibly make any commission on, indicating they’re willing to put your needs above their own. Do they send you a link to a subway map, for instance? Do they know about the shared shuttles from LAX? How about the Vienna airport train that’s not only cheaper but faster and more comfortable than a cab?
After hours of calls, I finally found someone: Her name is Brenda Ostlund, and she works for Vision2000 in Calgary (I’d been searching for so long, the eastern agencies had all closed). She took my trip trouble as a personal challenge, and it was only after looking into flights out of Buffalo and Hamilton, and into Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, San Diego and Vancouver, as well as connecting buses, trains and shuttles, that she told me I was going to have to either cancel the talk or arrive for the early conference session 90 minutes late. She spent upward of half an hour with me, and had there been a way, she would have found it.
The kicker is that even if there had been some sort of searchable directory, I wouldn’t have found her: Ostlund’s specialty is leisure travel. Maybe that’s the route for the small-business traveller.
Special to The Globe and Mail
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