Listen on your favorite app
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Welcome to Travel Buddy
In this episode of the Travel Buddy Podcast, Switchfly CEO, Nowell Outlaw, explores the often overlooked benefits of working with travel agents in the digital age. As travel enthusiasts might forego agents in favor of DIY online bookings, Nowell shares his invaluable insights and experiences that highlight the practical advantages and cost-saving secrets travel agents offer. Whether you're planning a simple trip or a complex itinerary, this episode will reveal surprising ways a travel agent can enrich your travel experience without breaking the bank.
Key Highlights:
- Discover how travel agents can secure exclusive deals and promotions unavailable to the general public.
- Learn about the local expertise agents provide, ensuring authentic experiences and seamless logistics, especially in international destinations.
- Understand the practicality of using a travel agent for complex trips, like cruises or multi-leg vacations.
- Explore the often overstated cost concerns and see how agents might actually save on travel expenses.
- Hear real-world examples of how travel agents can provide critical assistance during unexpected travel mishaps.
Quotes:
- "A travel agent might get you to the root answer a whole lot faster." – Nowell Outlaw
- "There’s a local kind of tribal knowledge that’s really hard to surface on the internet." – Nowell Outlaw
- "Travel agents have access to promotions and specials that consumers may not be aware of." – Nowell Outlaw
Transcript
Brandon Giella (00:01.455)
Hello, Noel and welcome back to the travel buddy podcast. Today we are going to be talking about travel agents and all the benefits that come with that role. And I'm so interested in this because you were just describing to me all the benefits of travel agents and I'm thinking in my head. Okay. I thought I realized that used to be a career path for some people, but I have never heard of people my age. I'm 34. So was born in 1990.
Of, being a travel agent because you know, the internet was supposed to democratize all this information and you go look up things online. And so if I'm booking a travel itinerary to Paris or Italy or whatever, and for a week, I'm thinking, yeah, I'm going to get on, you know, TripAdvisor and Google maps and Google flights. And I'm going to be like looking at all these different things to figure out my itinerary and I'm doing it myself and I'm piecing it all together. And you're like, Hey bro, you're doing it wrong.
Nowell Outlaw (00:44.642)
Hmm, for sure.
Brandon Giella (00:55.779)
So why am I doing it wrong? Help me understand this.
Nowell Outlaw (00:57.262)
It's yeah. No, I mean, we, do that the same way, right? Like I think everybody does that right where it's okay. I'm taking a trip to, you if I'm going to New York, most people probably buy that, you know, online and, know, the concept of an online travel agency and OTA, you know, Expedia bookings.com, like all those people, you know, that's not new, right? It's not like Expedia started three years ago. I mean, they started at this time when Google was starting, right?
Brandon Giella (01:01.923)
Okay.
Brandon Giella (01:23.78)
you
Nowell Outlaw (01:27.026)
And, and they really have transformed the business into an electronic online kind of booking process. But I would say from experience that there are scenarios where you a either get a better value out of, out of, using a travel agent, right. And you don't even know it. And those are things where the agents know about, you know, I took a trip to the Caribbean, right. And the agent.
that I was talking to, was like, you know, I'm flying this airline and I have a, actually happen to have a voucher here for like $400 off a ticket and I'll apply that to your thing. Right. And you're like, this is amazing. Right. They, they have these kinds of tools, as well as they know behind the scenes, like if you go to, American airlines, as an example, American might promote, a package travel solution to the Caribbean. Right.
through certain agents and has promotions and specials that you as a consumer may not know is directly happening behind the scenes. there's, you know, there's, think of it as there's a front door of consumer travel, right? Getting the normal people are just going to book, but there still is a world that exists of travel agents that are doing bookings for people all across the world, right? And the big one is cruise where
where, you know, Hey, I'm taking a family of eight and I'm going to cruise like that's super complex. Right. And so trying to do that online gets harder and harder, but you know, what you also see is, you know, the way we came up with this topic is, I was just in Scotland and I did a hiking trip for a week where, know, you need someone to move your bag from point A to point B every night. It's not like these places where you're staying.
Brandon Giella (02:58.191)
Hmm.
Okay.
Nowell Outlaw (03:18.966)
you can just go online and find them and know which one is the best one. You need local knowledge of, you need to stay in this bed and breakfast, or you need to stay in this small hotel, or these guys have really good breakfast, or these guys have a really lousy dinner, or there is that local kind of tribal knowledge, especially when you're going kind of outside the US, I think is really where it plays in.
Brandon Giella (03:24.065)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Giella (03:41.444)
Hmm.
Brandon Giella (03:47.203)
which is really hard to surface on something like a TripAdvisor or something where you do have reviews and it's really helpful in a general sense, but there are some little bits of knowledge that are hard to surface on the internet. mean, anybody in their local town would know that, you know.
Nowell Outlaw (03:52.61)
Correct. Those sites are great.
Nowell Outlaw (03:59.288)
For sure. Yep, for sure. Yeah, and TripAdvisor by all accounts is the, you know, one of the world's best or the world's best at, you know, reviews, I would say more internationally. When you go internationally, you see TripAdvisor logos everywhere, like Raidus on TripAdvisor, do all this stuff. And they're very proud of their rankings on TripAdvisor and they should be, because they've done a good job at managing that. And, but the trick is that now what I'm starting to see is
Brandon Giella (04:08.42)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Giella (04:13.402)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (04:22.008)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (04:29.326)
People are less asking about TripAdvisor reviews and more asking me to go on Google reviews, which I think is interesting. And yeah, TripAdvisor is the best for sure. Yeah, they're the best ones for that.
Brandon Giella (04:36.513)
interesting. Okay. I usually look at both, but TripAdvisor sometimes has some really nice, I mean, we've, we always look at it. It's always helpful stuff. Okay. So, okay.
So what's going through my mind is this all sounds really nice. What you're describing. That sounds great. I want to call somebody help me out, sort through all this because it's a ton of anybody that's done this. It's a ton of information online. But to me, it sounds, okay, this is going to cost me a lot extra because I'm thinking in my head of somebody using a travel agent. My father-in-law comes to mind. He's like the only person I know that regularly uses one. He does hunting trips in South America. And, but you know, he's retired. This is what they, you know, he's in a different.
Nowell Outlaw (04:54.84)
Correct.
Brandon Giella (05:18.348)
position than I am and I'm thinking well that's what those people do you know because I'm thinking it's very expensive but you're saying the economics aren't quite what you may think okay
Nowell Outlaw (05:26.958)
They're not, they're not. And I think in a lot of cases, a travel agent could probably find you a better deal than what you're able to find online. It is hard to believe. And it's not like, and some charge, right. But, but a lot of times you're not having to pay for the agent, right. Sometimes they may charge an air booking fee and things like that. But a lot of times they have access to promotions, specials.
Brandon Giella (05:37.38)
It's hard to believe, yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (05:55.854)
you know, through the hotel chains, through the packaging engines, like, you know, an American Airlines might run a special promotion for agents, right, to get them to book trips to Cancun, right? But I think the other thing that they will know about is, you know, a lot of people go to Cancun, right, especially from the United States, but it's, well, where do you go? Do you want to go to the Strip? What kind of vacation are you looking for?
Brandon Giella (06:24.676)
Hmm.
Nowell Outlaw (06:25.166)
you know, when our boys were small, we used a local agent and she was like, you know, it's like, look, we want something where the kids can be have fun. It's more about the, the kids play area at that point when your kids are five, right. And six, it's more about the kids amenities, right. It's less about the, you know, the romance and adults only kind of places. and it's more about, you know, how do they care for your kids and what do they do and all that other stuff. And I think an agent knows.
Brandon Giella (06:40.11)
Yeah. Yep.
Nowell Outlaw (06:55.074)
you know, this is a good place to go, right? Or stay away from this place or things. And I'm not sure you get those answers necessarily online. There's a lot of things that you can search for, but I think an agent might get you to the root answer a whole lot faster.
Brandon Giella (07:04.897)
It's harder. Yeah.
Brandon Giella (07:11.077)
Hmm, interesting. Okay. So how do you, how do you even begin that journey? Like I'm thinking like, okay, I want to look up. should, cause we have a trip potentially coming up in a few months to Italy and I'm thinking, okay, I want to find a travel agent. I don't even know what a good, do you have to like company or like individual? Are they like brokers? Do I look on Reddit? I don't even know where to start. Okay.
Nowell Outlaw (07:32.288)
It's yeah. I mean, you can, you can find them all over the place, right? You actually have people. I actually know a lady who does custom tours, in Italy, right? That's her whole job. Right. And so you find, you can find people who specialize in that, right. And they're, that's all they do. And, and, you know, Ashley, who works for us in charge of sales, she's also a travel agent as well. Right. And so, you know,
Brandon Giella (07:44.293)
Okay, I need an email. Hit me up.
Brandon Giella (07:58.198)
That's right, I remember that. Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (08:01.39)
there's just this knowledge. And I also think that, you know, you're going to Italy, maybe you know where to go, maybe you don't know where to go, right? And having someone who's booked, you know, 50, 100, 200, 300 trips to Italy, that knowledge is key, right? Where they're like, you know, hey, you want to stay here, you want to get in, but you know, once you're, I think the thing people don't realize is, you know, I fly to Italy, I get to the airport.
Brandon Giella (08:09.38)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Giella (08:14.639)
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (08:18.596)
Hmm.
Nowell Outlaw (08:28.308)
Okay, what's the journey like from off the board of the airplane to where I need to go? Because you're tired, right? If it turns into I mean, personally, I've done that get off. And now I have to do a four hour trek to get somewhere. It's brutal, right? I mean, you really want, hey, can I jump in a cab or take a train or whatever, 30 minutes later, be kind of relaxing, have a beer in my hand or a glass of wine. And then 30 minutes later, I'm asleep, right? Because, you know, you're wiped out. So
Brandon Giella (08:34.126)
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (08:54.851)
Yes. Yes. Yes. We did that in London. I forgot to book the, those little, like you were saying, like the person to take my bags from this place to this place. And it was our first trip with an 18 month old and I didn't, I forgot, you need a car seat and who has the car? So I ended up paying an arm and a leg for a private cab to like take us where we needed to go everywhere, which was hundreds and hundreds of dollars. yeah, cause I forgot. So yeah. Okay.
Nowell Outlaw (09:03.32)
Mm-hmm.
Nowell Outlaw (09:08.963)
Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (09:13.08)
Correct.
Nowell Outlaw (09:16.44)
correct. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, know, I think you can find them online. There's, there's basically there's big kind of clearing house, you know, agencies out there. and then there's also more smaller boutique people and they do, you do have people who specialize in, in certain things, like not to talk about my trip, but you know, my trip to Scotland that I just did to go hiking, you know, I found a travel agency in Scotland that planned, you know, not the airfare.
Brandon Giella (09:27.46)
Okay.
Nowell Outlaw (09:46.114)
but planned all the hotels, the stays, moving our luggage, how we got from, you know, Edinburgh to where we started, how we get from the end of our hike back, you know, bag, move-age meals, you know, things are included. And there's little things that you don't think about like, you know, in these small towns you're staying in, they're small. So you better have a dinner reservation, right? Because if you don't, you might not be eating dinner, right? Stuff like that. And so
Brandon Giella (10:07.864)
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (10:15.564)
That's why having that local experiences is super important.
Brandon Giella (10:20.005)
Okay, those details matter a lot, especially like you said when you're tired, but I'm curious something I've always that's always attracted me about you guys at switch fly is the service component You know, you're always like hey, we never leave a traveler, you know, basically on boots on the ground by themselves You know that that's so important to have that kind of that kind of customer relationship Is it the same kind of thing with a travel agent where like I had like let's say I you know I lose something or I need something immediately. Can I do I have? Are they there is that a service that they offer basically? I guess what I'm asking
Nowell Outlaw (10:22.574)
Correct.
Nowell Outlaw (10:43.074)
For sure. For sure. For sure.
Yeah, for sure. A lot of them have, especially if you've booked locally, right? They will have an emergency hotline. You can WhatsApp, ask them a question. know, someone's getting sick, right? Which does happen. It happened to my wife, right, last year. And that's where you need that help, right? And they will be there for you, especially if you have a local agency that can help you when you have a problem.
Brandon Giella (10:49.958)
Thank
Brandon Giella (11:04.462)
Yeah, it happened to me in April.
Nowell Outlaw (11:18.976)
Right. And, and that's, I think that is super important. It's the stuff you don't want to think about on vacation, but you know, my wife, when we went to Portugal last year and hike the Camino, I really, we really shouldn't have flown home. Right. We really should have stayed. And that was a mistake on our part because when we came back to the States, I took her to an urgent care and they put three liters of fluid into her because she was so dehydrated. Right. And so, you know, those kinds of things, especially when
Brandon Giella (11:42.979)
Wow. Wow.
Nowell Outlaw (11:48.622)
When something goes bad, that's when it's like, now who do I call? Right? I'm in the middle of wherever. I've had a problem. It's nice to be able to pick up the phone so someone can help you. They can get you a driver. They can get you to where you need to go. Right? Because that's super important.
Brandon Giella (12:04.537)
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (12:07.865)
Well, you have expanded my mind because when I hear travel agents as a 34 year old, I'm like, yeah, that's what Reddit is for, you know, or whatever. So to think that to maybe start using that service, yeah, it could be helpful. Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (12:10.439)
Hahaha
Sure. Yeah. Yep.
Nowell Outlaw (12:20.334)
It's something to think about. mean, and I think the interesting thing will be the itineraries that they come up with will probably stuff that you haven't thought about. Right? Because that's what their job, right? Hey, I'm looking to go to Italy and I want to do this and I want to do that. Okay, let's start you through here. You know, do you want to hike the Pyrenees or do you want to do this or do you want food? You know, are you there for the food or are there for the wine or there for the cheese? You know, are you there to go, you know, be pickpocketed? Like, what do you want?
Brandon Giella (12:31.0)
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
Brandon Giella (12:45.56)
Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (12:49.838)
And they can put the whole thing together for you, right, which is super important.
Brandon Giella (12:53.796)
Cool, cool, I love that. Well, I'll talk to my mother-in-law when she gets in town this weekend. We're gonna talk about this, so this is great. Thank you very much. Noel, thanks again. Love what you guys are doing at Switchfly and excited to talk next episode. All right, you too.
Nowell Outlaw (12:59.618)
There you go. All right. Cool.
Nowell Outlaw (13:07.104)
Alright, thanks, Brian. Have a good day. See ya.
