How to Work with a Travel Advisor – A First Timer’s Guide

You’ve found the perfect travel advisor, and now’s the time to put them to work on your dream trip! If you’re new to working with a travel advisor, there are a few things that you can do to help make the process run smoothly.

Having been described as the travel industry’s ‘matchmakers’, a great client-travel advisor relationship is worth its weight in gold. From personalized attention everywhere you go to perks and upgrades that only come with being the client of an esteemed advisor, the benefits of using a travel advisor are exponential, but how do you go about building that valued relationship?

Be Honest About Budget

Of course, you want your dream trip, with all of the bells and whistles. However, it does both you and your travel advisor an enormous disservice to not be upfront about your actual budget.

Going one step further, once you establish your budget, identify what’s high on your priority list. Perhaps you aren’t as focused on your accommodation, rather you’d prefer to have mind-blowing travel experiences in every destination you’re visiting. This helps your travel advisor not only build your dream trip but decide how and where to allocate your budget.

Trust Their Expertise

A travel advisor’s job is just that – travel. While the photos on a hotel website may have you ready to book, your advisor may know that it’s on a congested motorway or next to noisy construction. Trust them.

Great travel advisors go out of their way to familiarize themselves with destinations, properties, and various other tourism suppliers the world over. It’s their job to get to know you and match you with suitable experiences that just fit.

Collaborate & Delegate

Travel advisors are here to save you time, but if you have a dream destination, experience, or property in mind – tell them! A great trip is a collaboration between enthusiastic clients and a knowledgeable travel advisor.

In that same vein of saving time and collaborating, don’t be afraid to (politely) delegate to your travel advisor, and request that they look into a particular property, research specific activities for your family, or even have them hunt down restaurant reservations. At the end of the day, they’re working for you!

Accept Advocacy

For those of us with can-do self-sufficient attitudes, this can often be a hard pill to swallow. Your travel advisor is your advocate, especially when they’re 3,000 miles away and you’re traveling on the journey that they built for you.

If something goes wrong, accept your advisor’s help and grant them the opportunity to fix it. This may mean biting your tongue at the hotel manager if something goes wrong, and waiting on your travel advisor to work their magic. It will be worth it in the end. Try to remember, travel advisors have valued relationships with hotels and tourism suppliers, and they will bend over backward to keep them (and their clients) happy, and returning with future bookings.

Build Your Relationship

Let your travel advisor get to know you. The more that you and your advisor connect on a personal level and become familiar with your quirks, likes, dislikes, hobbies, and interests, the better your trip can be tailored precisely to you, and no one else.

Unique, personalized trips are where most travel advisors shine, so by opening yourself up and sharing parts of you (and your family) with your travel advisor, you’re only improving the chances for a beautiful, custom-made journey. Remember, the best relationships only get better with age, and a long-term travel advisor is someone you will want in your corner for years to come.