When it comes to travel, many consumers make a beeline for online resources such as Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, Priceline.com and Airbnb.com to book their trips.
There’s no doubt those companies have good deals on everything from airfares and vacation packages to overnight stays. But travel agents and other industry experts offer a level of information and expertise that can’t be found on those websites and plenty of them will be on hand this weekend at the 12th Annual Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
“If you come to our show you’ll be able to talk to experts who can help you personalize your trip,” said Jonathan Golicz, director of marketing for Unicomm, LLC, which is producing the event. “You can ask them what kinds of things you should avoid and learn about some great vacation spots that are off the beaten path. You’ll learn about trips you probably never even thought of.”
Golicz said the stabilizing U.S. economy is helping the travel industry.
“We’ve seen a lot of pent-up demand for travel since the presidential election and that equates more to people spending more money,” he said. “Bookings were up almost 20 percent at a recent travel show in Chicago.”
The Los Angeles show will feature a variety of celebrity travel speakers including Pauline Frommer, editorial director of the Frommer’s Guidebooks and publisher of Frommers.com. Others will include Rick Steves, who writes European guidebooks and hosts travel shows on public TV and public radio, and Andrew Zimmern, host of the Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.”
Frommer said her company’s guidebooks have been a valuable resource for travelers for decades. But she doesn’t discount the effectiveness of online sources.
“Our online site is very popular,” she said. “We get about 4 million visitors a month. When you come and hear my speech you’ll learn how to better book yourself online and I’ll give you tips and tricks that will save you hundreds of dollars.”
Frommer said timing can be crucial when booking air travel.
“If you book your trips on the weekend — and I mean that’s when you set up your trips — you’ll statistically save 19 percent off the cost of your ticket,” she said. “That’s probably because travel agents aren’t working on the weekends. And you want to book domestic travel 57 days in advance. That’s the sweet spot that will save you money.”
Frommer cautioned that many hotel chain websites have cookies that track the kinds of information a user has been searching for on the internet. Armed with that information, they’ll often boost prices for their accommodations.
“It’s called scraping,” she said. “They scrape that information and use it. If you’re searching for a hotel and your boss paid for your previous hotel stay that was $400 a night, they’ll try to up-sell you by starting with their pricier hotels first. You should go to journalistic sources like newspaper travel sections, or guidebook sites.”
Figures show that online sites are attracting an increasingly bigger piece of the pie.
Statistica reports that the online travel sales generated more than $533 billion in 2015, and that’s expected to hit $762 billion by 2019.
But travel agents aren’t exactly being left behind.
Erica Richter, a spokeswoman for the American Society of Travel Agents, said three quarters of her members reported that their revenues held steady or increased during the first half of 2016 when compared with the same period a year earlier.
“The internet is a valuable resource, but it cannot replace the expertise, guidance and personal service of a trusted travel agent,” Richter said via email. “When something goes wrong who are you going to call … the internet?”
WANT TO GO
What: The Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show
When: Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa St.
Tickets: One-day tickets for adults 17 and older are $15 and tickets for both days are $22. Children 16 and younger can get in free when accompanied by an adult.
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