Why using a travel agent could save you more than money
Monday, 20 April 2026
Grant Bradley is a business and aviation journalist.
OPINION: A generation ago, the beginning of the end of bricks and mortar travel agents was being forecast. Now they’re busier than ever.
While overall agent numbers have fallen, the value of transactions has grown sharply since the pandemic and one travel boss says they’re tapping into a new market; younger clients.
Online travel websites launched in the mid-1990s, most notably Expedia in 1996, allowing travellers to book directly and airlines started selling direct to customers, cutting out travel agents.
But the travel trade weathered the onslaught of increasingly big and sophisticated online travel agents (OTAs) for two decades before the pandemic. When Covid first hit in 2020, the impact was catastrophic on the entire travel sector, but it was the traditional agents with their higher overheads that were hardest hit. In this country, scores of stores closed, costing the jobs of hundreds of agents. Some agents were working around the clock to get clients back to this country as their businesses collapsed around them.
To the surprise of many, the recovery was almost as dramatic as the collapse and as borders opened, ‘revenge’ travel was enthusiastically embraced and holidays abroad went on to defy the cost of living crisis. Kiwis are travelling overseas in record numbers, and importantly for agents, they’re going on more complex, high value land trips and on cruises which rely heavily on agents to sell them. While airline commissions per ticket have plunged, agents are still rewarded with rebates for hitting overall air sales and they still get a cut of many hotel, tour and cruise bookings.
An unstable world hasn’t been bad for business either. If the pandemic was unprecedented, geopolitical shocks such as the US-Israel war on Iran and more extreme weather are now more the norm. And that’s where agents come in.
“They’re the first responders when people are travelling and these crazy events happen,” says Julie White, chief executive of the Travel Agents Association of NZ, which represents more than 90% of those in the sector. A survey of members found that as a result of war in the Middle East, 38% of TAANZ-accredited agents faced a significant increase in workload.
Agents are increasingly charging upfront fees but she says those who go through OTAs on the assumption they’re going to save money are missing out on the access agents have to booking systems and travel products that OTAs don’t have or don’t offer.
And when war breaks out, DIY travellers are on their own. Desperate OTA bookers whose plans were upended by war in the Middle East are turning to traditional agents for help just as happened when the pandemic hit, says House of Travel chief executive David Coombes.
“People waiting on hold to call centres for OTAs and airlines direct got so frustrated, they come into our stores to look for help because they can't get it even though the booking's been made with one of those channels.”
He says muscle memory from Covid has helped this time around with agents swinging in immediately to get people out of trouble spots, but armed with the knowledge clients won’t want to give up travel.
Some House of Travel staff were doing 16 hour days to get clients repatriated but their work was more about rebooking and finding alternative routes for clients to Europe.
Taanz figures from March show just 3% of holidays were cancelled.
Coombes started in the industry a few months before the 9/11 terror attacks and has been frequently told the industry is under threat from geopolitical disruption, OTAs and now Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Loyal customers have formed even stronger bonds with consultants and there's a new younger cohort of customers who are willing to pay for a better upfront experience and confidence there’s backup if there’s major disruption.
“I'd say the agency communities got stronger.”
Coombes says House of Travel is embracing AI, with guardrails to expand knowledge and resources among its New Zealand and Australian staff but thinks the personal touch will remain critical - especially when travel is disrupted.
Agents get the thumbs up from Consumer NZ. The organisation's campaign manager Jessica Walker says the majority of travel complaints it handles are about third-party booking sites - OTAs.
“It can be difficult to get a resolution if things go wrong and you've booked through a third party,” she says.
“For anyone booking a complicated trip, or for people that like the reassurance that a travel agent provides - having someone they know that they can contact if things go wrong - then we can see the benefit of having a New Zealand based travel agent.”