Hey everyone and thanks in advance for your help.

I am pretty much the go-to guy for family, friends, and organizations that I am part of to find decent rates for airfare, hotel, car rental, etc. I realized that I enjoy doing this, and see an opportunity to turn a profit.

I'm confident that I can get low rates for others, but am not sure if this is a legitimate theory that I have. Will I be able to establish a customer base? I don't know. Will people want to use my services instead of competitors like expedia.com? No clue.

I'm passionate about this idea because it is something I could do through the summer and while I'm away from home at college in the fall.

Please let me know what you think of my ideas and if you have any comments, I would love to hear them.

Thank you.
Justin

Hi Justin,

The thought alone of wanting to do this is great! This exactly what entrepreneurship is- taking an idea/seeing an opportunity and running with it. That being said, congratulations on taking the first steps!

I see your service as being a legitimate business you could run with low start up cost and a good potential upside.

Some things you need to think about:

1) Who is your target market? I would personally think older baby boomers and new retirees would be a good fit. These are people that enjoy traveling but may not know enough about the internet to use or trust expedia....and plus having that human communication when booking something like a trip is always comforting.

2) What are you going to be doing for your customers? Are you going to help them find attractions and organize their trip, or are you only going to find airfare for them?

3) Where do you envision this business taking you? Is this something you're only looking at doing part time to create a bit of additional income? Or are you serious enough about this to get it going full time? Either is fine, but you need to have a clear vision in order to be able to work towards your goals.

4)What kind of budget do you have for marketing and what do you know about marketing? Of course you would need a website, but some ideas as to what you could start with would be flyers or small display ads in newspapers. Also asking your friends and family for referrals would be a good place to start. If you are willing to put enough into this, you could hire a copywriter like myself or my business partner (www.smallbusinesscopywriter.com), we guarantee our work do what needs to get done to ensure you see the results you are looking for. You could purchase one of our home study courses and take the time yourself to learn what works and what doesn't, and how effective marketing is all about testing and tracking results so that you can keep doing whats working and stop doing what's not.

These are just some thoughts for now, hope everything goes well for you. You have something viable here, the only thing that can stop you from succeeding with it is you.

All the best,
Curtis

Discover the 95 year Old System
That Ignites Entrepreneurs Incomes
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Thank you both for your quick responses! I appreciate your help with getting me to ask myself the right questions. I have some responses, and I'm wondering if you could let me know what you think.

Target Market- My target market is people elderly people who have already retired, or others who need help with their travel services. These people are more likely to want to travel, and may not be as capable as others in searching for competitive fares.

Customer services- I plan on gathering information on dates, methods, and location of travel from customers. With this information, I would be able to search for the lowest rates on airfare, hotels, car rentals, and activities using the internet and phone. Services could range from simply finding an appropriate flight that fits their needs, to putting together a package with all travel arrangements, printed directions to each location, and reservations for activities at the destination. I could provide them with ideas for activities based on research of the specific destination. Overall, I want the customers to feel that we have a special connection and that I am providing the best rates and ideas for their trips. To set me apart from online travel sites, I plan on being as flexible and available to customers as possible. By providing an email and phone number, customers could reach me in a number of ways, day or night.

Profit- In order to make a profit, I would charge something like 10% on the total package price. I feel this percentage would result in a lower fee than competitor?s websites,

Business Layout- I see this business as being a part time business for me. Since I am working 40 hours a week during the summer, and will be taking classes in the fall, the business would be operated at nights and on weekends. One benefit of this type of business is that reservations can be made with just a laptop that I have on me at all times.

Budget and marketing- Currently my budget is small for this business. I am willing to invest $500 in local advertising. Since the fixed costs of a business of this type are very low, and the variable costs include mostly advertising, I feel that this is an appropriate amount to begin with, considering the small scale I wish to start out with. Yahoo websites cost $9.99 a year, and I am prepared to invest in purchasing it, while designing it myself. Another method of advertising I am prepared to do is to hand out flyers. I currently have a side job of handing out flyers on mailboxes for a local bird store, so I know the rules regarding this, and also what a tedious process flyer handout is. The main newspaper in my area charges $250 dollars for a two week advertisement. I think this is an appropriate investment once I decide to get started.

This is all a basic outline of what I intend to do, and I thought I'd let you know, that the more I write about this topic, the more interested and excited I become.

Thanks again for your help and support!

Justin

Justin,

If you are talking about a business, some companies will pay you a commission, but others have cut them drastically or eliminated them altogether.

That leaves you in a position of making little or no money on part of your services. From what I understand from one of my travel customers, they do best with booking cruises and group travel, where they can put together the the entire package.

If people primarily want airline tickets, you'll have to add something commissionable or be doing the work for no income. The other alternative is to schedule airline tickets for a fee, for those clients who use you primarily for that service.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

Dennis Bevers

P.S. I schedule 100% of my travel, airlines, hotels, rental cars, and get calls from family to inquire what services I use to find better rates.

I'm using hotwire.com, expedia.com, travelocity.com, priorityclub.com, and choicehotels.com. I could join other hotel reservation systems, but these work for me almost 100% of the time.

Dennis Bevers
BASSCO, Inc.
Full-time, home-based, self-empolyed since 1987.
Dealers needed-US residents only!

Hi,

I am in a business in which I earn commission from people booking travel on my site. I too, at first, have had the issue with getting others to purchase from me and not from other highly advertised websites. Once I let them know that I have competitive prices too, they purchase from me all the time. I have even had moments when our prices were higher and someone still purchased from me. So just give it a try, I do not think that it is that hard at all to get others to purchase from you!

Justin,

I just got this article from Magellans in my inbox about travel agent (it that is what you want to be called ) :http://www.magellans.com/store/article/396?sssdmh=dm8.125100
It talks about how people are going back to travel agents in droves because of the service when something goes wrong and links to the industry. The one thing those website travel places don't have is good customer service. You are up the creek without a paddle if something goes wrong. I thought you might enjoy reading it.

Thanks,

Calvin Hanson, Traveler
www.pgraphics.biz

Hey Justin,

I just started a small business on tour and travel in Kenya. Our country is a red hot destination at the moment and am looking out for contacts or business partners from abroad to help sell the trips. Am currently working on a web site and I would be happy to provide materials on the various safaris and activities clientele could be interested. I also custom make trips.
If you find this a challenge to you, give me a line and we could brainstorm on a number of ideas i have. my address is laurekuria@yahoo.com ..

Thanks and regards..

Lawrence
"nothing is impossible to a willing mind"
Mobile: +254 722 858611