Product Description

How to Start a Home Based Travel Agency has just been entirely updated.

The effects of September 11th, 2001 and the resulting aftermath has had a dramatic effect on the travel industry and further enabled home-based travel entrepreneurs. The January 1st, 2003 printing of How to Start a Home Based Travel Agency is the most up-to-date information available about operating a travel business in this exciting industry.

Issues such as the elimination of airline commissions, the implementation of service fees, the fabulous growth of the cruise industry and all of the changes that have evolved are discussed and analyzed. This edition of How to Start a Home Based Travel Agency is a must have if you are considering entering the travel industry or are an agent going home-based from a storefront.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #532574 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 322 pages

Review
"This book is mandatory for all who are considering a career in travel. Buy it! Read it! Learn from it..." -- William Maloney CTC, COO of ASTA, The American Society of Travel Agents

"Tom and Joanie Ogg have made it easy with this book for a newcomer to set up their business..." -- Jim Terracciano CTC MCC, Owner of Cruises Do Come True

“Both Tom and Joanie Ogg are the travel agent industry’s leading spokespersons and authorities on behalf of home-based travel agents." -- Joel Abels, Editor, Travel Trade Magazine

About the Author
Tom and Joanie Ogg share over 60 years of combined travel industry experience and are considered the leaders of the home-based travel industry revolution that has changed the travel industry forever. Jonaie Ogg CTC MCC is the President of NACTA, the National Association of Commissioned Travel Agents (the association for home based travel agents) and is a featured speaker at travel industry conventions. Tom Ogg is the President of Tom Ogg & Associates and speaks on the topic of starting a home-based travel agency all over the world.

Customer Reviews

Pages and editor missing but highly informative
I bought this book hoping to open my own home-based travel agency but decided half way through the book it wasn't really the career for me. So I received enough information to let me know that I didn't want to waste any more time pursuing a career as a travel agent. There was information on how 9/11 has negatively impacted the travel industry. It also made me realize how much more difficult it is to break into the business without negotiating with specific companies for referral commissions and that travel agencies now have to charge fees for issuing airline tickets because airlines no longer provide commissions (because most of them have never recovered from 9/11 and are on the brink of bankruptcy). I personally prefer to buy tickets directly from the airlines to avoid additional costs.

I realized that being a travel agent was going to be more effort than I was willing to put forth for what sounds like scraps - according to the authors' description of how the industry currently works.

So buy this book if you are REALLY serious about wanting to start your own travel agency but realize you may not get all of the information because of missing pages and horrible editing.

Tons of insightful information, but very poorly edited.
I read through this book cover to cover to learn more about the travel and home based travel agency industry. The information contained within was extremely useful, and provided a terrific overview of the steps necessary to start you own business. Perhaps it made it seem a little too easy to become successful as a home based travel agent, but the ingredients were all there. This included setting up your business, creating a marketing plan, hooking up to the travel provider network, and training involved.

However, I am only giving this book 3 stars because the editing job for this book seemed non-existent. Lack of commas throughout, many typos, blank lines in the middle of paragraphs, grammatical errors, and other basic editing tasks were obviously not done. I can't imagine why this level of polish was left out. If you can ignore this then the book is well worth it for the knowledge gained.

I also wanted to note that the authors promote their own affiliated web sites a little too often throughout the text which wasn't necessary. A more unbiased set of Web links would have been more useful.

Great Book!
I was a "travel agent" for GTI and just didn't get the support I needed and found the benefits non-existent. But I found out that I wanted to become a real travel agent. I bought both books from Amazon.com and found How to Start a Home Based Travel Agency the best book for anyone wanting to start a serious career selling travel. The other book is good if you want to join GTI or organizations like that. I didn't find many errors in it at all.