1. How many types of travel agencies are there?
Travel agencies are basically categorized into two types-: Retail Travel Agency and Wholesale Travel Agency.
Retail Travel Agency
A retail travel agency sells tourists’ products directly to the public on the behalf of the product suppliers and in return gets commissions. Some package tour is sold in two ways i.e., on a commission basis and mark up the price.
When a travel agency sells a tour on the marked-up price it means that first, it markup the cost of the tour and then sells it at a higher rate. The profit price is the distinction between retail price and general cost.
Wholesale Travel Agency
These agencies are specialized in organizing package tours, which are marketed to the customers/tourists through the network of a retail travel agency or directly to the prospective clients ( if the wholesale travel agency has a retail division). A wholesale travel agency purchases tourists’ product components in bulk and designs tour packages.
Sometimes, a wholesale travel agency buys travel components from the vendor in bulk and resells them to other travel business originations.
Wholesale travel agencies assemble package holidays and sell them to clients through retail travel agencies. A typical package tour includes – air tickets, accommodation, and other services that may also be included in it such as entertainment, sightseeing, and sports activities, etc.
These packages are referred to as ‘package tours’ most of these tours include the services of escorts but a few are sold to people who wish to travel independently.
2. How do travel agencies make money?
Airline tickets are the lifeblood of corporate agencies. Not selling airline tickets after commission cuts were out of the question. To offset the lower airline commissions, corporate agencies implemented a service fee when they booked a ticket. The common charge for internal air with corporate agencies was $40.
In addition to air, corporate travel agencies earn commissions from booking cars and hotels for business travelers. Corporate travel agencies make Money mainly from service fees, net/private fares, and from airline commissions. Travel agencies, depending on the airline contracts they have access to, are able to earn commissions on both domestic (typically 0-5%) and international tickets (10-22%).
So how much are corporate travel agencies charging? According to our latest Travel Agent Fee Report, the average fee for domestic air among corporate agents was $40.
3. Who are the top 5 travel agencies in Singapore?
Chan Brothers
Chan Brothers travel is one of the most reputable travel agencies in Singapore: Since its inception over 49 years ago, Chan Brothers has proved to be the No.1 travel agency with many prestigious awards like Best travel agency awards awarded by Travel Trade Gazette Asia and agency Of The Year awards awarded by Singapore Tourism Board.
This travel agency has won people’s hearts with top quality and value-for-money tours, including package tours, free & easy tours, cruise tours, and private customized tours.
Hong Thai Travel
Founded in 1985, Hong Thai Travel is one of the best travel agencies for Korea tours: Korea is booming as a stimulating destination for visitors. By cooperating with only reliable and reputable Korean operators, Hong Thai Travel always provides customers great and value-for-money Korea packages. Its popular 8D beat Korea Deluxe tour has been awarded together of the 8 Best Korea Tour Programmes in the world by the Korea Tourism Organisation.
Dynasty Travel
Dynasty Travel isn’t only a top travel agency in Singapore but also a dynamic company continuously improving its services to serve customers better. they’re committed to providing an entire range of travel services for his or her diverse clientele including organizing group tours, MICE tours, free & easy tours, tailor-made tours, and academic trips.
This travel agency offers a good sort of packages to Hong Kong and Macau, a number of which have Zhuhai and Shenzhen included. The travel agency has been awarded Top Agent by Hong Kong Tourism Board for its outstanding service.
Golden Travel
Golden Travel Services Pte Ltd, established in 1976, their success is made on theirs long-term commitment to delivering top-notch service. The founder, Lin Deng Li, and her dedicated team of thirty-five staff offers you well in more than 44 years of collective experience within the travel industry and extensive personal travel knowledge. They specialized in providing custom vacations to the world’s most remarkable destinations. Have one of our expert vacation planners create the itinerary of your dreams today. enjoys a luxury travel package to Asia, start an adventure to the Himalayas, take an alluring African safari – just dream of your ultimate trip and that they will create the perfect itinerary for you
C&E Tours
One of Singapore’s pioneer travel agencies, C & E has over 50 years of industry experience. They concentrate on corporate travel and ticketing and so far service quite 100 local SME companies. From resort packages to flights and tours, they need an expansive list of options to supply customers. They even offer special tour packages for Muslims, and for Buddhist pilgrims also.
4.Conclusion
What is the future for travel agencies in Singapore?
Technically, foreign tourists can navigate Singapore on their own. It’s a little city-state that’s easy to get around with a reliable transportation network and helpful locals who are multilingual in English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.
Singapore also prides itself as “safe and clean” long before Covid-19 makes those attributes the very best travel values.
The city has quite 1,200 travel agencies, inbound and outbound. Strong arrivals growth year-on-year reaching 19.1 million in 2019 ensures the regeneration of inbound agents annually — laggards were replaced by more imaginative newcomers in providing experiences.
The same goes for outbound. Singapore’s population could also be small, 5.9 million people or a 3rd of inbound arrivals — but have they got the travel bug. This keeps the number of outbound agents fairly consistent.
A key reason why agents in Singapore are still ready to hang on to their business is support from the govt. This includes a short-lived bridging loan program, wage support for local employees, waiver of license fees due for renewal this year, and reduced minimum financial requirement for agents holding a general or niche license by 90 percent, to S$10,000 ($7,454) and $5,000, respectively, for the period April 8 to New Year’s Eve.
New Arguments of travel agencies
The travel agencies of tomorrow also will prioritize the standard of a visit versus quantity, said Ramona Bohwongprasert, Amadeus senior vice chairman for retail travel channels, Asia-Pacific.
“Trust is the new currency of travel, which suggests that that specialize in strengthening your brand and prioritizing technology investments like omnichannel, having great and competitive content beat one screen, and providing excellent consultancy and servicing will help ensure success in the future.”
Covid-19 may have just made travel agencies more valuable than before.