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Types of travel agencies

1. To better serve the travelling public, travel agencies offer either general services or specialty services. There are two types of agencies: full-service (or general) and commercial (or corporate). These agencies can be further categorized according to location, such as an on-site agency, or according to specialization in a certain type of travel, such as vacation travel, cruise trips, or adventure travel.

2. The typical full-service agency is like a department store with a wide variety of services and products for every possible customer. Most agencies fit into this category. The full-service agency is staffed and equipped to answer and serve all categories of traveller needs from bus tours to wilderness guide tours to business trips.

3. The larger full-service agency usually has divisions within the company that specialize in types of travel such as business, international, domes­tic, tours, or cruises. Each counselor in the full-service agency usually has a spe­cial knowledge and expertise in one of these types of travel. Thus, customers feel comfortable going to one full-service agency for all travel needs.

4. The commercial (or corporate) agency specializes in busi­ness travellers' needs. Many commercial agencies are not even identified as travel agencies, to discourage walk-in vacation travel requests. The commercial travel counselor differs from the vacation counselor in terms of counseling, speed, and efficiency. The counselor is responsible for finding the best-priced airfare, a convenient hotel, and a car rental.

5. The counselor must respond immediately, whereas the vacation counselor usually has weeks or months before the traveller actually takes the trip. The commercial counselor is also expected to be efficient in arranging travel for corporations. Some corporations have developed their own travel department. The travel department may be required to arrange conventions and meetings for the corporation along with individual business travel for the employees.

6. Most agencies cannot deal exclusively with one type of travel because the number of people needed to go on the trips does not live in one geographic area. However, some types of travel, such as adventure travel, or an agency's location might warrant very specialized services and, hence, a spe­cialty agency.

7. Adventure travel is a fast-growing segment of the travel market. Agencies
specialize in arranging exotic trips to places seemingly inaccessible to the every­day traveller: a river trip down the Amazon, an African safari, cross-country skiing in the Arctic, hiking the Himalayas.

8. Senior travel is a specialty market for some agencies, which concentrate on providing travel options and itineraries for senior citizens with special needs. Planning trips for seniors may require special knowledge of places with wheel­chair accessibility, restaurants that will cater to the needs of special diets, or motels with handrails in the bathrooms and other places within the facility.

9. In addition to senior citizen needs, there are needs of the disabled traveller. Less than a dozen travel companies offer tours especially for those with disabili­ties, such as for the blind or deaf. Although few in number because of the cost, tours for the disabled are growing.

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