cover story
HOME ALONE II
SA NEW STUDY REVEALS DETAILS ABOUT HOME-BASED AGENTS, A GROWING SUBSET OF TRAVEL RETAIL
THAT DRAWS A MIX OF OLD PROS, NEWBIES, WANNABES AND DILETTANTES
SUPPLIERS OF TRAVEL PRODUCTS ARE CLEARLY ON THE HUNT FOR BUSINESS FROM HOME-BASED
travel agents, just as they are eager to find help from any credible channel to distribute
their products.
But the relationship between suppliers and home-based agents is not being pursued as
vigorously as some have assumed, nor is it generally as productive as some suppliers have
indicated elsewhere, and it typically represents a small percentage of the revenue that sup-
pliers receive through all travel agents.
While most home-based agents tend to be profession- plier groups: airlines, cruise lines, tour operators/packagers
als with many years of experience selling travel, even sup- and hotels.
pliers who have invested the most in home-based agents, Plog received responses from 40 of the 77 executives who
the cruise lines and tour operators, are critical of what they were asked to participate, a 57% rate of return. In his ques-perceive as mediocre knowledge of products and of their tionnaire, Plog asked the executives to explore the impor-lack of demonstrable creativity in developing programs tance of home-based agents to their operations, the level
and travel ideas. Those are among the findings of Stanley of acceptance of such agents within their industry and the
Plog, a researcher and analyst who produced a survey of potential future growth of home-based agents and their
home-based agents, suppliers and others with an interest impact on travel distribution.
in the home-based market, and then assessed those results Respondents included 18 executives from tour operator/
for Travel Weekly and its sis- packagers, eight from hotels,
ter publication, Travel Age
West. BY DAN LUZADDER AND BILL POLING eight from cruise lines and
six from airlines.
Plog’s survey of suppli- Their answers, from which
ers and their transactions with ho me-based agents, one of P log quantified the data, show that among the sample, only
three areas on which his home-based agent study was fo- two executives — one from the airline industry, the other
cused, was conducted among senior executives in four sup- from hotels — said they did not accept bookings from
NEXT WEEK: AS A FOLLOW-UP TO THIS TWO-PART SERIES, RESEARCHER STANLEY PLOG EXPLAINS
HOW HIGH-INCOME SUPERSTARS DIFFER FROM OTHER HOME-BASED AGENTS
