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More travel agents working out of the 'home office'

Lower fees mean more opt to work out of the house

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent, 8/8/04

Globe Staff Photo/Lane Turner Marisa Cole (left), a travel consultant who works out of her home, shows Maria Samiljan cruise brochures in Samiljan's living room. To be competitive, some travel agents are making house calls.   Globe Staff Photo/Lane Turner Marisa Cole (left, with client Maria Samiljan) worked 18 years at American Express and five years as an independent contractor. She recently set up her own business, Sensational Travel.

With her laptop computer and phone at her side, Marisa Cole puts together travel packages for clients from her Salem home. Sometimes she even makes house calls.

David Thrower of Medford has adopted the same modus operandi. ''When most travel agencies are closing at 5 or 6, I'm usually just starting my business day, preparing to meet with clients in their homes,'' he said.

As home-based travel agents, Cole and Thrower represent a new wave in an industry that has been rocked by consolidation, a decline in airline commissions, and the Internet.

According to the National Association of Commissioned Travel Agents, it's estimated that there are about 20,000 agents nationwide who work from their homes, mostly women who specialize in leisure travel.

Thrower, who heads the association's New England chapter, said there are probably several hundred home-based agents in the region, a number that is on the rise. ''It's more economical for people to work out of their homes, and clients like the fact that we make house calls,'' he said. Most agents rely on 10 to 15 percent commissions, based on trips booked.

Many, such as Cole, once worked for full-service travel agencies. Others, like Thrower, have come into the home business arena from other industries. All are working against the backdrop of an industry wrenched by change. Commission caps and cuts on airline tickets hurt many agencies when the nation's air carriers first instituted them nearly a decade ago. Then the rise of the Internet brought online agencies like Expedia and Travelocity, which make it easy for consumers to click around for a bargain.

As a result, the number of travel agency offices declined dramatically, from about 45,000 locations in 1995 to 20,000 to 25,000 currently, said Richard Copland, chief executive of the American Society of Travel Agents. In New England, there are 323 remaining ''brick-and-mortar'' travel agencies, said Irene Ross, president of the American Society's New England chapter. Data for previous years are unavailable, she said.

The industry metamorphosis has been from ''order takers to travel professionals selling personal service,'' said Copland, who owns a travel agency in New York City. ''And more people are taking a cost-effective route by working from their homes. That's becoming almost the fashionable thing to do nowadays.''

Most of these agents, he said, are involved in leisure travel, ''which is a $100 billion-a-year business and growing.''

It's a niche, Thrower and others noted, that doesn't require licensing or special training. So, anyone with enough contacts can embark on a career as a home-based travel agent pretty quickly. And there are plenty of books and websites to help newcomers learn about the business.

While the home-based segment is fast emerging, the number of travel agents as a whole is expected to drop to 102,000 in 2012, from 118,000 in 2002, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau attributes the decline, for the most part, to Internet travel services and agency mergers.Cole is a survivor. She worked for American Express for 18 years and later spent five years as an independent contractor for Flagship Travel, of Marblehead. Last month, she set up her home business, Sensational Travel, arranging vacations and cruises.

''I like the flexibility of working on my own,'' she said. And clients she has served over the years are only a phone call away, she pointed out, adding that she has a number of regular customers.

''Today, you have to go out and provide a lot of services to clients, whether it's on weekdays, evenings, or weekends,'' Cole said. ''I'm working with consumers to find out what they want.''

Maria Samiljan of Marblehead and her husband recently returned from San Juan, a 10-day trip that was planned by Cole. Cole, said Samiljan, ''is very service-oriented. I don't have to leave my home -- Marisa brings me everything I need to decide where I want to go.'' She recently met with Cole to go over plans for a family cruise in February, during school vacation week.

Some home-based agents gross more than $100,000 a year, ''based on arranging trips amounting to several thousand dollars each,'' Thrower said. To reach that income level, someone would have to book about 200 trips a year, he added.

Thrower, who owned an Everett computer store and once worked for Raytheon Co., got into the travel business when a doctor who treated him for a heart condition suggested a career change for health reasons. ''The doctor knew that I had done a lot of traveling and thought I'd be good in that business,'' Thrower said.

In 1998, his wife, Paula, a nurse at Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Medford, formed PMT Travel, with him as her assistant. They did a lot of networking and research on tour operators to jump-start their venture, he said.

''We're like a lot of couples who are supplementing their incomes by having home-based travel businesses,'' Thrower said.

He and his wife specialize in tours and cruises and have a so-called host agency -- in their case, Incentive Connection Travel of Phoenix -- for help in lining up trips. Many home-based agents have these business relationships, he said.

''We now have over 100 clients in the Boston area, whom we serve at all hours,'' he said. ''We benefit customers, we think, by not being a 9-to-5 business.''

Thrower will go the extra mile to aid clients, sometimes meeting them with travel documents at other locations, even airports, to expedite things, he said. ''I'll go almost anywhere to help a client.''

Pat Thomas of Sterling worked as a manager for 30 years for full-service travel agencies in Lexington, Fitchburg, and Lancaster. ''Then two years ago, I decided I didn't want to commute to Lexington anymore and set up a business in my home,'' she said.

Her business, Personal Travel Planner Inc., specializes in leisure travel, particularly cruises. ''I do most of my business over the phone with people who still need a lot of hand-holding in planning trips.

''People can find a lot of travel information on the Internet, of course, '' Thomas continued, ''but it's often hard for them to judge what's good and not so good. That's where I come in.''

That's also the thinking of Bob Poland, owner of Don't Go There Personal Travel Adviser. For the last nine years, he has worked from his homes in Jamaica Plain and Provincetown. Before that, he worked for a wholesale travel group in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

"Clients never forget the name of my firm," said Poland, who mostly has a gay and lesbian clientele. He said he tries to inspect properties he recommends to make sure clients want to go where they are located.

Poland said he deals with 130 clients regularly and 100 others from time to time. ''I communicate with most of my clients via e-mail and phone,'' he said. ''And because I don't have a lot of overhead and walk-in clients, as travel agencies do, I can spend more time with clients than I could at an agency.''

Cole, the Salem home-based agent, agreed. ''You don't have to be in a brick-and-mortar agency to reach people,'' she said. ''That can easily be done from your home by phone, fax machine, or e-mail.''

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