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The Travel Agents Who Are Better Than the Internet ; The Crafty Traveller

The Crafty Traveller

Fred Mawer says there are lots of good reasons for letting experts do the donkey work

WHO needs travel agents?

We are becoming a nation of self-appointed holiday arrangers, cutting out the middlemen and booking travel and accommodation for ourselves.

When a trip to anywhere in the world can be arranged from our computer, why entrust someone else to sort it out?

Well, for starters, the sheer volume of information at our fingertips has, in many ways, made it more difficult to fix up that holiday.

Type 'villa in Spain' into Google, and you'll be presented with more than ten million results.

This is where a human, with expert knowledge someone, perhaps, who knows of a good company specialising in Spanish villa holidays, or who can highlight the pros and cons of the different costas wins hands down over the internet.

There's also the issue of time.

Even arranging a straightforward holiday can mean several evenings stuck in front of the computer sifting through flight and hotel options and sorting out car hire or transfers. So why not let someone else do all the donkey work for you?

Lastly, those of us who work every day on computers often forget that there is a sizeable minority who are without access to, or are disinclined to use, the internet.

If that describes you, then preparing a DIY holiday can be tricky. So travel agents can still be very useful.

Or at least good ones can be.

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