Welcome to ROVIA Host Agency for Home-Based and Independent Travel Professionals
Welcome to ROVIA Host Agency
for Home-Based and
Independent Travel Professionals
First we need to recognize that there are several levels past the entry point of LTC (Leisure Travel Consultant), which is where we all started when we joined… These levels are: BTA (Booking Travel Agent) & TRS (Travel Reservation Specialist), RBA (Reservation Booking Agent) certifications. Why should you care about this? For starters, if you want to build a solid team that will “stick & stay” with you longterm, then get focused on getting your team trained to become travel professionals with Rovia. If you do this, two things will happen:
1.) Your team will make more money because they be selling more travel and receiving a higher commission… and, if you were the one that sold them the product membership then you will receive 10% of what they make.
2.) Your team won’t quit if a few people say no to the MLM side of WV, because they’re primarily focused on building a soild travel business and the MLM side is a secondary thought. Now what’s really great, is when your team focuses on selling travel, they’ll also attract a ton of people who will want to do what they’re doing and a portion of those will decide to also build the MLM side of our business model.
Now Let’s Go Over Some Quick Facts On How People Can Enter The Travel Industry
PURCHASE A STORE FRONT TRAVEL AGENCY – You could invest over $200,000 to own a store front travel agency, however if you do not have at least two years experience in the travel industry you cannot get accredited. If you owned a store front travel agency you would receive 100% of the commissions paid by the suppliers however those commission levels will be substantially lower than the commissions that are paid to the larger volume agencies or Host Agencies. You may need to hire staff and join the many travel organizations. You would probably spend most of your time operating the business rather than concentrating on just selling. The days of the independent store front agency have been disappearing at the rate of 10% a year leaving only the National B rands operating locations.
GO TO TRAVEL AGENT SCHOOL & WORK FOR A TRAVEL AGENCY – You could spend several thousands of dollars to go to a travel agent school. This of course gives you the right to do nothing more than work for someone else and unfortunately travel agents working in an agency are on the lower end of the pay scale, usually earning very small commissions or working for not much more than minimum wage. The travel agent schools have plenty of graduates every day, so there is never a shortage of people willing to work on this basis.
GET SERIOUS WITH YOUR ROVIA BUSINESS – With ROVIA Travel you OWN and operate your own Independent Travel Business. You operate under the license and bonds of a fully certified Host Travel Agency and you do not need the normal two years experience in the travel industry to be accredited. You can name your business anything you would like and you can offer every service a store front Travel Agency offers.
Let’s Go Over Some Quick Items That You Can Cut & Paste Into Emails When Approaching Travel Professionals…And If You’re Not Approaching Travel Professionals, You Should Be!
Whether you are presently, or wish to become, a Home-Based Independent Travel Professional, Rovia Travel can offer you a complete hosting service. Our State of the Art Technology and personal one-on-one service is second to none. We can recommend training courses that fit your particular travel niche or level of experience, even if you are brand new in the business. We offer you 70% & 80% commission programs. Plus an additional 10% overrides on the travel booking commissions of others that you introduced to Rovia.
We welcome both the experienced and the inexperienced travel professional. Our only business is focused on supporting our affiliated professionals. We are not a technology or marketing firm pretending to be a host agency attempting to sell you our products. We realize it is important for home-based agents to keep costs down and to realize more from their investment when choosing a Host Agency.
You will have access to all of our memberships, IATAN, CLIA, NACTA, ASTA, STARS, TPOC,WRTA, NEST and The Travel Institute with their training and marketing technology. As an affiliate with Rovia, you will have access to our many booking engines including Amadeus Cruise, VAX land, Adventure Travel and Cruises. We also offer the top level supplier commissions and the best marketing programs in the business. We have 4 GDS’s: Apollo, Worldspan, Galileo and Amadeus!
Please take a few minutes to review my website yourwebsitename.rovia.com . As you will see, it is loaded with everything you may want to know about our program. Our program is straight forward with one single low fee to join. There are no hidden fees or monthly charges.
ROVIA WEBSITE (LTC) $20.00 referral fee… Leisure Travel Consultant Membership is $224.98 with a monthly fee of $24.99
(Refer 4 pay no more available). Illiminate your monthly fees forever for referring 4 people to purchase one of our TRAVEL products
Rovia gives you access to nearly a hundred suppliers and booking engines to get you started. You will have access to our Agent Only Portal filled with training, vendor logins, commission tracking and lots more. The website is also great as a refresher for you experienced professionals. Just think; you don’t have to learn the cryptic codes of a GDS system. Unless you book a great deal of corporate air the GDS is of little value. You can book any travel, anytime via our internet based booking engines.
DO YOU CURRENTLY, OR DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO USES A “HOST TRAVEL AGENCY” TO RUN THEIR TRAVEL BOOKING THROUGH? IF SO, THERE’S A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOST AGENCIES AND ROVIA’S PROGRAM IS THE BEST HANDS DOWN. If you are like many people who have researched Host Agencies, then you know how confusing and frustrating it is to choose the right one. Don’t fall into the trap that a free membership is better or that you need to pay a lot of money for the best. When choosing a Host Agency you should look at the basics and then you’ll be able to get past the “hype and deceptiveness”. Ask how long the host has been in business and if it’s profitable. A Host Agency losing money may not be around to pay you your hard earned commissions. Does your host agency belong to a recognized consortium? Does the Host Agency offer it’s own “photo Id cards” for you to obtain travel perks and large discounts? Agencies offering photo ID cards are not really Host Agencies but are considered “card mills” within the travel industry. Many times these card mills will send out misleading e-mail broadcasts containing outrageous text about travel perks to get your attention. Beware of those marketing firms offering consumers discounted travel designed for ‘certified’ agents (by certified, we mean those that have gone through the IATA training, such as our BTA (Booking Travel Agent & TRS (Travel Reservation Specialist, RBA (Reservation Booking Agent) certifications). Professional travel agents will appreciate how strict Rovia is on this issue and that we offer a complete range of travel certifications.
You will find Rovia Travel an easy choice as your Host Agency. The Internet is growing rapidly and everyone has an opportunity to do well selling travel. Travel technology is growing all the time with new and exciting programs becoming available to the Travel Agent. The Travel Agent provides personal service and support that the giant booking agencies can’t touch. Our technology also allows us to compete in many ways with price. We have more options, with our many booking engines to find the right vacation, than the big guys.
HERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS YOU MAY ENCOUNTER…
Q. I am just starting out in the travel business and plan to operate from my home. How can Coral Sands help me to get started?
A. Rovia Travel understands the continuing need to bring more travel agents into this industry. It is a priority for us to help agents to get off on the right foot and help them to stay on track. Today’s travel agent must find his/her “niche” by specializing in a particular segment such as cruises, honeymoons, sports programs or perhaps a geographical area such as the Caribbean, South Pacific, or Europe. You can’t be all things to all people, so don’t even try. We include an online Start-Up Manual loaded with information. Rovia has developed a training program for you based on your interested specialty. The program will be a combination for reading materials, online courses and, if you wish, attending educ ational conference shows. We also invite you to join FREE webinars weekly.
Q. How much income can I earn?
A. Just like any business, you can earn as much or as little as you want. Certain areas of the travel industry are more productive than others. Specializing in cruises, international travel, group travel or other niches will be far more rewarding than just trying to be everything to everyone. If your idea is to start an agency specializing in domestic airline tickets, forget it.
Q. Do people call me directly?
A. This is the same concept as owning your own storefront travel agency with the exception of no walk-in customer (they are very rare in the industry anyway). You build your client base in the manner that is most comfortable for you. I will state that we do not profess this to be an Internet business alone… you will need to start with your family and friends and then their friends as well and branch out into your community such as your church or other organization. It is truly amazing how it all grows after you build an initial client base.
Q. Do I sell them travel arrangements and take all of their information for the vacation travel over the phone/Internet?
A. Yes, that’s pretty much the concept. The phone is used a great deal more than the Internet when communicating with your client.
Is there a minimum in commissions that must be generated?
A. No minimum commissions. No quotas. No minimum amount of time devoted to your business. The Key Words here are “It’s Your Business”.
Understanding Today’s Host Agency, its Origins and its Future..Why not Rovia!
Host agencies, up until the late 1990’s, were better known as ticket fulfillment agencies or more commonly called “travel agencies.” They had the ARC accreditation and a contract with one of the major GDS’s such as Amadeus, Sabre, Apollo, Worldspan or Galileo. Air ticket stock provided by ARC and a printer was usually located in a separate area from the public. Most of these agencies were store fronts or as we call them today, “brick and mortar” agencies.
When the airlines eliminated the commissions paid to travel agents many of the “brick & mortars” began to simply go out of business. The remaining agencies began to shift their focus to the leisure travel market with cruises and land tours including hotels and car rentals and held on to their store front operations at least for awhile. Each year more and more independent store fronts are closing their doors due to unprofitability and increased overhead costs. Those remaining will probably be part of a chain or franchise operation.
Many of the brick & mortar agencies, upon closing their doors gave up their ARC credentials and the owners and employees began to work as outside agents for those remaining store fronts. A few of the store front agencies realizing an income potential, began to focus on these outside agents. These agents would generally work both in their home and in the store front agency depending on how the agency owner supported them. These agents were for the most part, experienced and required little support other than to pick up travel documents, brochures and other information from the agency. The focus by the owners of most of these “brick & mortar” agencies were on their full time staff and the day to day business of operating a store front agency. As the years passed, more and more of t he store front agencies continued to close their businesses, as mentioned earlier. Many began to work from their home or affiliated themselves with those remaining store front agencies. Many store front agencies were confronted with a growing population of outside agents who preferred to work out of their homes. The numbers were increasing as many less or no experienced agents realized there was potential income and convenience in working from home. The problem was that most of the store front agencies were not equipped to handle any number of outside agents. They offered little or no support or training to these emerging home-based travel agents.
A few of these store front agencies and even fewer of those agencies that held on to their credentials but closed their store front operation had a vision that if they could train and support the so-called home- based travel agent while holding on to the more experienced agent, a whole new revenue stream would open up. These agency owners began developing business models that would include attracting, supporting and training this growing market of home-based travel agents, especially the newer agents entering the industry. With the advent of the tremendous growth of the home- based travel agent, today’s host travel agency was born out of what we once called fulfillment agencies or the old store front travel agencies.
Today’s host agency is made up of many business models. There probably is a different business model for each host agency. The basic definition of a host agency is a retail travel agency with ARC, IATAN or CLIA accreditations who loans out their credentials to others for a piece of the commission or a transaction fee. As in any industry in its infancy problems arise including some business models with questionable character and/or goals.
Most host agencies today further define themselves with much of support and training and marketing technology and programs. Many hosts will only affiliate with experienced agents while a few more will engage both new and experienced agents. There are also a few agencies that find it beneficial to call themselves a host agency when their business model suggests something else.
However, the travel industry defining a host agency may never come to fruition. PATH, an organization for host agencies, are attempting to further define a host agency but time will tell as to their success. Host agencies are themselves evolving and we are beginning to see who the main players in this segment are. There will always be room for the smaller and midsize host agency however, their business model will dictate as to whether which of them will become successful.
The larger host agencies such as Nexion and Travel Planners International consider themselves the “big boys” in this segment and rightfully so. Their agents total into the thousands. The up and coming host agencies such as America’s Vacation Center, Travel Partners, Rovia Travel and Travel Counselors are more midsize hosts with less than 500 affiliates (fully certified), each but growing rapidly. Perhaps they will be tomorrow’s “big boys.” There are hundreds of small host agencies that have from just one or two affiliated or home-based travel agents, to a couple of agencies that have from just one or two agents to a couple of hundred. I foresee the smaller Host agencies merging together with the larger hosts creating the “mega” Host Agency as cruise lines begin to increase their commission level requirements.
Host agencies for the most part, are a very apathetic group much like the travel agents they support. Other than the group of 24 host agencies that are presently members of PATH, the host agency organization, there are hundreds of host agencies that fall under the basic definition of a host agency that operate totally independently from each other and for the most part do not communicate with each other. The reason may be just the competitiveness of this segment or lack of self confidence. It is an historical fact that when bodies get together and share the same goals that body becomes more efficient and trusting of its fellow members. This has yet to happen with host agencies.