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Is The Era of The Agent Over?

What happens to the gate keepers of old?

They once had all the chips, held all the cards, housed all the information, controlled the access rights and clipped the ticket as we made our way through their system. But in the same way that the web changed the game for Britannica, CD stores and book retailers, nowadays real-estate and travel agents are also being rocked by change. So how are they coping?

If you think about the changes that have reshaped the travel industry over the last few years, mainly the fact that it’s now economical for airlines to sell their own tickets, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking that the era of the travel agent is well and truly gone, but you’d be wrong. Looking at the change and re-structuring that STA have gone through in order to stay current, it’s easy to see that the era of the agent is far from over.

Moving from Gate Keeper to Enabler and informer

The rise of the social-web presented STA with a similar problem to that faced by many other embattled industries. Travel blogs, reviews, C-2-C connections and web based innovations were leading STA towards irrelevance. But rather than sticking their heads in the sand and hoping that the web would go away they’ve embraced the social-web.

Already working with the most powerful oxymoron of our time “mass customisation”. One of the ways that STA has enhanced it’s service is by encouraging travellers to share their experience is through the STA blog network.

You can create your own STA travel blog on the STA site to share your experiences with the world. Although STA stop short of rewarding bloggers for their efforts, they’ve recognising that almost anyone can set up a blog, so STA have included a few value enhancing features. Such as a message board, video uploads and automatic sharing to facebook which make it slightly more attractive to blog on the STA site.

Recognising that information shared between friends is the most powerful form of advertising, STA has developed a referral programme. In much the same way that Threadless.com encourage sharing through giving away Threadless credits, STA also encourages you to refer a friend through rewarding  successful referral with Travel vouchers.

So has their business really changed?

While we as consumers can still bypass their offers and go straight to the airline for tickets, the value network which they’ve created means that we chose not to. We choose to use this middleman because they’re no longer a merely a gate keeper they’re now a value added service provider, an information aggregator and an experience enhancer.

It would have been easy for STA to design a web strategy to try and bring people into their “real world” stores, instead they’ve focused on their core purpose and used social tools to enhance travellers experience, and help them make better decision.

iThnk it this is a lesson that other agents could learn from, what do you thnk?