Do you love planning travel for family and friends?
Do you have expert knowledge in a particular destination or experience?
Turn your passion into income! Join my team today.
Helping you help everyone travel!
Join my team as an independent travel agent affiliate. This is an amazing time to start in travel – with demand temporarily down you are afforded time to learn and prepare for booking travel.
No experience is necessary. You can join and learn. Our online training program is available to get you started and you also join a community of experienced agents where you can interact, post and learn, and I provide direct coaching and guidance for our travel systems and trip planning.
Prior to completing any travel bookings on your own you must have passed the TICO certification exam. This confirms your understanding of the travel regulation in Ontario. When you register online you will have access to the study guide. Sample exam questions can be found here and here.
No minimum travel bookings required to benefit from all our agency services including registrations (TICO, Incorporation, CRA, …), industry memberships (ACTA, IATA, …), consortium affiliations (Ensemble) and insurance (General Liability & E&O). Also provided are head office operations for email, corporate extranet, email, Workplace community hub, invoicing/ClientLink worktop, accounting and income reporting.
As with all us outside agents in the industry, there is always a one-time initiation fee to work under a host agency. The reason I am advertising the affiliate opportunity is because of the significantly reduced initiation fee promotion that our head office announced suddenly…. and it will disappear just as fast.
The reduced initiation fee is currently $499+tax (an 80% reduction). This amount, of course, is tax deductible as a business expense.
Additionally, for sign-ups during this promotional period, I will also rebate back to you the initiation fee at the end of your first year should you attain a minimum non-personal travel commission earnings.
Outside agents are not employees, we are our own boss running our own book of business with our own clients, earning on what we sell and/or markup.
If travel seriously interests you, maybe just bite the bullet, and if it doesn’t agree with you that will be fine. I am not trying to sell anyone on being in the travel industry, my aim is to offer this promotional price reduction to those who do want to enter.
But think about it and we can chat more. I would love to have you on my team!
Contact me should you wish to review samples of the standard contracts.
Some info about joining my team
This position is for an independent travel consultant earning commission, however, you do have the ability to add markup and/or charge service fees in addition to commission if you wish.
Once licensed, all of the necessary programs and partnerships for selling travel will be provided to you through our head office this includes the programs needed for booking travel as well as the resources needed to invoice clients and ensure you receive your commission.
You will also be promoting yourself and finding your own clients (I started mostly with family and close friends and then they started referring others to me so my client list grows every year). I may, at times, give you clients that approach me if I am too busy or if I feel that you qualify more for their needs, but this will be determined case by case.
Along with selling travel you will have the opportunity to attend trade shows, webinars, fams (familiarization trips) and qualify for discounted travel including special industry (travel agent) rates. You can also set your own hours, work as little or as much as you like plus you will be working from home and reap the benefits of many in home business write offs (hydro, office space, phone, internet, etc).
If you have any interest in joining now is truly the time as it has the least costs to start and with this pause in travel it will give you the time you need to take your TICO exam, learn the programs and possibly decide a niche that you want to focus on, or don’t, it’s all up to you.
FAQ
- How long is the training? – This is all based on you and your personal learning curve. There are online training modules, then you will do live training as you learn. Being are good at computer searches, having an eye for detail and being willing to put in the time is really important. This travel pause can actually be beneficial so that you can better learn and understand the different programs and feel confident selling travel.
- What kind of benefits will I have as an agent? Any examples? – You will have access to net pricing for you, your Spouse and your immediate household (under the age of 19 as long as you travel with them). You will have access to travel agent discounted rates (for example, hotel agent rates, all inclusive resorts agent rates, Princess cruises offers 1 free cruise for you and a guest when you complete their training module, special rates on river cruises and tours)
- Is there promo trips available to agents? – These are called FAM trips and are designed to help agents learn about what they are selling. Most often these are for the agent only and you will be on site with many other agents at the same time. They are at very discounted rate, usually don’t include airfare, and are busy as they are all about teaching. There are also sometimes discounts given as All Inclusive packages to Sun Destinations (Mexico, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Cuba) from Tour Operators, these are called self guided FAMS and you may take 1 person with you. You usually only have to do a site inspection (this is to familiarize yourself with the resort).
- Any quota to meet? – There is no quota per se but there are incentives if you sell more; minimum commission/mark-up amounts of 10% are expected on any bookings.
- Can I book for anywhere in the world? – You can book any travel worldwide as long as there is a supplier that you can work with that pays commission OR sells net onto which you add mark-up OR you can charge the client a service fee for your work. Some Agents charge additional service fees anyways for the extra work and some build specialty packages and create their own pricing (this will all be taught to you if it interests you).
- Do I have to register with CRA as a business owner?
You do not need to register as a business until you are required to start collecting GST as a small business ($30,000 annual earnings) but you will need to file your taxes appropriately if you wish to claim & deduct business expenses. Please consult your accountant. - Can I claim expenses related to being a travel agent? What kind of stuff can I claim?
Some of the things you might claim are office space (% proportionate to the room used in your home), part of electric, internet, phone, annual fees paid to Head Office, any gifts sent to clients, FAM trips, all office supplies, it is pretty much anything needed to run your business and get clients. It is advisable using an Accountant for this though and then you can write that cost off too. They are better equipped to help ensure you are writing off legitimate items and often can find areas that many don’t think of that can also be used.
