travel agency business
Online Travel Business
Start an online travel business – it’s one of our most recommended online business ideas.
If you love travel – be it your own backyard or more exotic locations – you can start a homebased online travel business from anywhere in the world.
The online travel industry is getting bigger and growing every year – with an estimated $1.4 trillion in sales in 2011.
We love TravelBusinessAcademy.com. We think this is one of the best online business ideas if:
- You are looking for online business ideas and the travel industry appeals to you
- You have an existing online travel agency and need marketing suggestions for increasing your profits
- You’re a travel agent looking to start an online travel business, either in addition to or as a replacement for your offline activities
- You are engaged in other aspects of the travel industry and seeking to diversify
It’s true that the big players dominate the online travel business. Sites like travelocity.com, expedia.com, orbitz.com, hotels.com … there are many.
But these guys only go after what they perceive to be the big markets – they’re not interested in “niches”. (In this respect, we think it’s not unlike the cosmetics and detergent manufacturing business opportunity we mentioned in our AustraLab review here – another largely untapped goldmine).
If you choose the right niche for your online travel agency business, you could be making some seriously nice cash. While the big travel operators certainly take the lion’s share, as an online travel business operator you do have serious advantages – primarily lower overheads.
This means you can offer highly competitive deals to your customers – simply because you don’t have to pay for TV and magazine advertising, office expenses, etc. You can operate on lower profit margins and sell greater volumes.
So, how to start your own online travel business? Our Travel Business Academy Review …
At SmallBusinessIdeas4u.com, we couldn’t find anything that comes even close to Matt Zito’s Travel Business Academy. And we couldn’t find anyone who comes even close to Matt Zito, in terms of hands-on experience, industry expertise and his willingness to share his knowledge.
Matt Zito has the credentials a program like this needs. He operated a highly successful home-based online travel business – CollegeSkiTrips.com. He later sold this venture to Ski.com, the largest ski tour operator in the US. He knows the industry inside-out.
Matt Zito contends that your online travel business could make you a six-figure income and you go on to sell it for seven figures.
From our own research here at Small BusinessIdeas4u.com, we believe him – but you do need to know what you’re doing. This is not one of those online business ideas where we suggest you just set up a virtual shop and work out the details as you go along. You gotta have a good plan – and that’s why we like Travel Business Academy.
Matt Zito has written a free report, which you can download here – it gives some basic information and should help you decide whether this is the best online business idea for you. The free report is not an actual online travel agency business plan – for that, you really need the complete course.
Wondering how to choose a niche for your online travel business? We’re including here some of Matt Zito’s tips for success:
- Choose a niche which is a subset of a larger market, but still part of that market. For example, “cruises” is a big, broad market where the big boys congregate – there’s over 6 million potential travelers searching for this each month. A better target would be “single cruises” – at about 18,00 searches per month, it’s big enough to build a profitable home-based online travel business, without fighting off the corporations.
- If you have specific knowledge of a particular tourist destination, for instance an area close to where you live, you could use this as the basis for your online travel agency business.
- If you have knowledge of a particular type of travel, for instance ski trips, luxury travel, shopping destinations, this could form the basis of your online travel business.
- Online Private Sale/Daily Deal/Group Buying Website. In this business model, you can build a private sale, group buying member-only website catering for specific destinations or types of travel. These are quick, easy and inexpensive to start and can scale quickly with the help of online social networks. Examples of these social commerce travel websites include Jetsetter, LivingSocial Escapes, RueLaLa.
- Online Travel Agencies. In this online travel business model, you can sell everything from air travel and car rental to accommodation, tours, etc. This model does require more time and effort, but it can be quite lucrative.
- Online Tour or Trip Operators. This is one of the best models for building a successful online travel business. You can organize trips or tours (and there is a difference between the two – we suggest you read Matt Zito’s free report to find out more about this – click here to download it).
- Online Travel Broker. This is an online travel business you could start with virtually no money. Many small travel businesses don’t have sales representatives – this is where you come in. You offer to act as a middle man or broker, selling their services (which might be accommodation, tours, etc) and find larger companies to partner with. In return, you make money by earning a percentage of all future sales, or a flat fee per contract that you sign. This method is ideal to help you get your foot in the door of the tourism industry, especially if you want to start on a part-time basis and slowly build up your business.
- Receptive Tour Operators. This is a business-to-business concept, offering your services to wholesalers or tour operators in overseas countries. You start an online tour operator business, but instead of selling your services directly to the public, you sell to larger, established travel companies who then sell your services to their customers. This can be especially successful if you live near a famous tourist destination or other location popular with overseas travelers. With this business model it may take longer to build contacts and credibility, but if you are able to offer something a little different or better than your competitors, you could capture a profitable market.
At SmallBusinessIdeas4u.com we gotta say we really like the program we are reviewing here – if you want to start your own online travel business, we think this is the only way to do it. We do not believe you will find any other program similar to this on the internet and we’ve been researching this topic thoroughly for some time.
If you’re already in the industry, but looking to diversify or increase your bottom line, the Travel Business Academy will help you develop a strong online travel agency business model.
Travel Business Academy costs $197, which includes 5 modules comprising a comprehensive series of manuals and worksheets, plus access to the member forum network. We think it’s great value – a weekend course would cost more and not offer anywhere near as much information.
If you really want to go for it is this industry, or turn an existing travel-based business onto full speed, you can go the next level. In addition to the above, you get five hours of personal coaching with Matt – plus private email assistance for each of the training modules. This costs $995 – again, we think it’s worth every dollar, and then some.
Just some of the course material includes
- How to create a travel product that sells
- How to name your business and acquire a domain name
- How to create win-win deals with your partners
- How to negotiate the best deals
- Software and technology platforms you can use to grow your business
We’ve already registered the name for our online travel business – we found one we liked, so we went for it!
The Travel Business Academy gets the SmallBusinessIdeas4u.com Seal of Approval. It wins our vote as the best online travel business training program, and one of the best online business ideas!
You can check it out for yourself here www.travelbusinessacademy.com
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