I use our on-site travel agency for my business travel. Until
recently, I also used them to book my personal trips, but the
agency's policy has changed. Instead of having the same agents who
handle my business travel book personal trips, it now asks us to
call a toll-free number that reaches a leisure department.
I decided the other day not to take advantage of that option.
Instead, I asked an agent I know to handle my vacation trip next
month. My business isn't going to make this agent rich, but I know
her, like her and trust her. In my first few communications with
her, I feel much better about making the decision to use her
agency. I'm pleased with the fact that she is readily available,
that she comes back so promptly with answers to my questions, that
she seems to care so much about making the trip successful.
Business-travel agencies have talked a lot in recent times about
expanding into leisure, and many of them are doing high volumes of
leisure travel. But I still get the feeling that for some large
corporate agencies, leisure travel is an afterthought.
Some of the owners of large corporate agencies are much more
comfortable talking about the business-travel aspects of their
operations than they are discussing the leisure side. In some
cases, they seem almost to fear involving themselves too much in
the personal travel of their corporate clients.
We used to have a corporate travel agency that acknowledged this
fear and tried to avoid handling personal trips for corporate
customers. One of their executives told me that the agency was
afraid that if they mishandled the personal travel for an important
corporate client, they could put their business-travel relationship
at risk.
I'm sure that some corporate agencies do a good job of providing
both business and leisure travel services to their corporate
customers. To do that, I think you have to understand the different
needs of business and leisure customers. I think you also need to
find agents who have very different approaches. Many leisure agents
have told me they could never be happy handling business accounts,
and I've heard similar comments from corporate agents about
handling leisure.
It may turn out that the larger corporate agencies that account
for ever-greater volumes of business travel will not achieve
comparable success in leisure travel. That would turn out to be
good news for agencies such as the one I'm using, which is run by
someone who is sensitive to the needs of a client who is booking a
trip that won't end up on an expense account.