Independent Travel Agent/ Franchise

[lknights1987]

I am looking at a career change and becoming an independent travel agent working from home.

Having done a google search i have come across a few franchise companies one of which is called travel counsellors which cost £10,000 for there franchise.

Is it worth spending money on a travel franchise or would i be better of paying for a few courses to become an independent travel agent?

If its better to do a few courses what course can you recommend ? I am currently working full time so i will be studying in my spare time/days off that i have in the week.

 

[jennifer.brown]

Hi,

I currently work as a recruitment executive for Travel Counsellors. The Travel Academy franchise includes[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif'] a 12 month training programme, so that you can learn all about the industry whilst building your own home based travel agency at the same time. Our training involves an initial 8 day classroom based programme held at our head office in Bolton. Once you have completed the first 8 days, you will have enough of a grounding to launch your travel business – safe in the knowledge that you have 200 support staff at head office to turn to. You will return to head office for further training after 3 months and after 6 months, then the rest of the training is online/web based and is done from the comfort of your own home. The cost for the academy which includes the bonding and licensing is £10,000 + vat. [/FONT]
[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif'][/FONT]
[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif'][/FONT]If you would like to discuss in more detail please call 0800 072 5704.

Kind Regards
Jenny

 

[K2012]

That sounds like an awful lot of money to be honest for this kind of start up. It is not proven if there is even customers to recoup the ROI in a reasonable amount of time. Of course "Reasonable" being the operative word as it differs from one person to the next..

 

[superdooper500]

Quite honestly for me, a franchise is only ever useful to the franchisee if there is significant brand awareness of the product/service for example subway, mcDonalds, Dynarod etc. Some businesses use franchising as a method to grow their business without regard for the franchisees. I've never heard of travel councellors, and I'm sure they don't offer anything unique that you couldn't create yourself.

Aside from this, my gut feeling would be that the travel agent industry is in huge decline, with the advent of online portals such as booking.com etc.

Best of luck to you, but always ask 'whats in it for me' and try and read between the lines of marketing copy designed to make you part with your cash.

 

[businessfunding]

I'm not anti franchise at all, but you do have to look at what you are getting for your money

In this case it appears you are getting training, accreditation and back up - all of which are reasonably easy to quantify and compare

From you previous posts it would appear that you difficulties in driving customers to you - there is no evidence that this franchise will help in this area.

IMHO £10K does seem a lot of money for what you are getting.