Lateral thinking earns the most commission

Lateral thinking earns the most commission

How do you fancy doubling the amount you receive from making short-break bookings? Linsey McNeill reports

AGENTS making big money on short breaks are the ones who can put together itineraries tailored to their customers’ needs, rather than just booking packages straight from brochures.

Short-break operator Travelscene reckons agents with the confidence to sell tailor-made packages could earn at least £300 per booking and, in some cases, the commission could be much higher.

Travelscene specialist sales supervisor Shazia Saleem said: “The average value of a tailor-made booking is about £1,500 per person, which is at least double the value of a normal short break. Agents earn at least 10% commission on tailor-made bookings, and some agents earn up to 15%.”

Travelscene claims its five-strong specialist sales team can handle virtually any request, including multi-centre breaks combining six or more cities, trips to the opera or Italian league football matches, large groups travelling together, and luxury trips with club-class flights and VIP transfers.

“We can arrange just about anything clients want to do or see in Europe and we never say ‘no’,” said Saleem. “If it’s possible, we will do it.”

However, the business is not easy to come by for agents. Saleem admits that whereas Travelscene’s reservations department takes a booking every minute, its specialist sales team handles only about 40 a week, and some of those come direct from clients.

Saleem said: “If agents want to take these kinds of bookings, they must be prepared to think laterally. They have to be open minded and rather than just offer a client what’s in the brochure, they should find out what they really want and then see if it can be put together.”

But not all agents will be capable of handling bespoke bookings, according to Paul Smith, a partner at independent agency World of Transport in Twickenham, which specialises in individual itineraries. They involve a lot of complicated work, and you have to know your product,” he said.

“Good operators such as Travelscene and Cresta will do a lot of the hard work for you, but you still need an in-depth knowledge of the destination or the product.”

Smith said training is crucial for agents specialising in the short-break market. He added that individual itineraries take much longer to put together than those straight from the brochure, and often clients expect the sort of personal service that not all agents have the time to offer.

“If it’s what they want, we will visit people’s homes to talk through their plans, but this isn’t always something that the multiples can do,” he said.

Margaret Pedly, senior travel consultant at Downes Travel in Staffordshire, which recently booked two large groups with Travelscene, agreed such business could be time consuming.

“You have to collect all the deposits and take everyone’s details, something which can be a lot of hard work, and not every agent on the high street is prepared to do that,” she said.

However, what is one agent’s loss is another’s gain. City breaks are one of the few growth areas in packaged travel and Travelscene claims the demand for more unusual city holidays is also on the increase.

“The volume of enquiries handled by our specialist sales team is enormous,” said Saleem.

Nice little earner: as well as city breaks, Travelscene’s specialist sales team can also meet demand for packages involving trips to football matches or the ballet