I just found this forum a few months ago and it's very informative. In reading through I am curious, however, how you can tell that a travel agent is posting to drum up business. It had not occured to me that this might happen until I started reading through some posts and saw it discussed on the "how do we like the new sight format?" Of course, travel agents can be most helpful, but I want to know when I'm getting advise from one.

What difference would it make if they were travel agents? This site has been a "travel bible" for most of us through the years.Some of the people that have helped me out seem like old friends after a few emails(the kind that I wished lived close and that we could all share a glass of wine and a meal with!). I think that you will find that the majority of people that are nice enough to write back with a suggestion are doing a "random act of kindness" for a fellow traveler so that they can enjoy a certain travel experience without anxiety/headaches.
There are people from all walks of life on this board. You might even be surprised at the number of people that travel that know more than travel agents?Just enjoy this great electonic
medium!!!!!Debbie

I have traveled all my life, then became a travel agent in 1984 after graduating from College. Do I need to announce that? (maybe wear a little star after my name?) I never solicit business in here, as you suggest. If anything, many questions in here go un-answered by me if it seems to be too much like "work". I am NOT here in a professional capacity. Now, if I were a psycho-killer/travel agent there might be room for concern...

Well curious, there's your first clue: travel agents tend to stick up for one another and defend their tactics on this and other boards, usually by suggesting that everyone "ignore what they don't like" or just don't be concerned about them.

Another clue: they tend to focus on places and businesses that pay them to promote (i.e. give them commissions and free perks) like hotels, restaurants and tourist activities. You won't find many agents recommending which hikes to take in Yosemite, but you'll find plenty trying to steer you to certain hotels in Hawaii. They don't make money unless they promote and sell businesses. You'll notice that posts about Hawaii are often grouped in sets of three or more here, and are the same questions over and over, once again, usually focusing on hotels and restaurants.

Another clue: They often provide "laundry lists" of places, including fax numbers, current rates, room descriptions, etc... Normal travelers generally have not stayed in every upscale hotel on Maui, for example, with updated information on each. But travel agents have all that kind of information. They are PAID to have it, and to push it on you, in the form of "helpful" advice, as if they are innocent travelers just trying to lend a hand.

Yet another clue: the poster invites you contact them for more information. They are forbidden by Fodor's to blatantly troll for customers so they must disguise their true intents. Their true intent is to promote the businesses which have paid them to do so, sell you as many packages as possible, and generally steer everyone in the direction that is most profitable for THEM.

Stay on this forum for a while and they'll be flushed out. Heck, keep reading this post and note which posters rush to the defense of agents or tell you it isn't important because they're just doing it "out of the goodness of their hearts."

They are professional sales people, NOT honest travelers, whose industry is crashing around their ears with the advent of do-it-yourself travel planning on the internet, so they come to travel forums like this one to sell you their wares.

Go to the CNN or MSNBC site or some other news site and do a search on travel agents for very insightful articles about just how travel agents are making their money these days.

Cheez, "gottheir number," there's paranoia and then there's silliness.

If an agent posts urging you to contact a specific agency or tour group, there's a chance they'll make $$ on the contact, esp. if they can somehow connect you with the Fodor's site.

But if they just give you a website or recommend a hotel, they can't get a kick-back unless they can prove to the hotel somehow that what THEY did directly led to YOUR booking -- and you'd have to have an agent # or a name and they'd have to have YOUR name, too, to do that. Otherwise, it's all anonymous and haphazard.

More to the point, how can you tell when a PR person or an advertising person has posted? That's pretty obvious, esp. when it's unsolicited and slickly written. In that case, they probably are being paid by someone just for the time they spend spreading the word. But whether you book at the hotel or the tour makes no difference, no commission, etc. since they're on salary.

As to knowing when you're getting advice from an agent? When all is said and done, you may or may not. And it may be good advice from someone experienced, or it may be glossy-brochure talk. Just toss it in with all the other advice you get here, and take what seems worth taking.

Oh my, more posts in defense of travel agents! "Mouse" is either Sharon or Debbie, presuming they are not the same person.

Read some of the older posts here about travel agents (do a search) and get some REAL insight.

I'm NOT a travel agent, but for god's sake some of you people have to start taking your happy pills again!

Thanks for the responses. There does not seems to be a middle ground on this subject. As for myself, I don't want to "toss it in" with all the advice and take what's worth taking. I don't know what's worth taking--that's why I'm asking. Therefore,I don't want brochure talk. I can get that on my own. I ask questions here because I want honest opinions from people who have experienced the topic. I don't care if a travel agent answers as long as they speak from experience and have no agenda.

Well, since it will never happen that you will get "advice" from a travel agent who has no agenda on this forum, better start figuring out how they operate and who they are. They want you to believe that they spend all day at the agency booking travel, then come home to their computer and offer the same "helpful advice" on a travel forum (i.e. target market) that they have been paid to do all day, all their OWN time! Out of the goodness of their hearts, no less! Yeah, and I've got a bridge to sell you, contact me directly for more info!

Just for the record-I AM NOT A TRAVEL AGENT! Never have been one in a previous life either. I am just tired of people on this forum going off in different directions then what Fodors had intended-to help/swap information to other fellow travelers.Please people-life is to short to sweat this small stuff.
As for one of the previous posters saying that no one but travel agents know prices,etc............I think that you will find that an awful lot of us keep brochures/tips,etc. from previous vacations in files for future use for ourselves and others. I did not realize that in the past that if I recommended something and knew the price,etc. that that would mean I was a travel agent? I will crawl back into my cyberspace hole and not come out for awhile...........Thanks for letting me clear this up!

GET A LIFE!!!!!!!!!

No, I'm not a travel agent and, frankly, I don't ever use them -- having found them useless and costly. I do my own arrangements and have picked up a thing or two along the way.

But I chimed in on this one because I think the rabid look-out-for-the-agents theme on posts like these is excessive, condescending to other posters who can be trusted to use a little judgment, and also ignorant of how things really work.

Arn't we all,those of us who hand out travel info, travel agents? However, for most of us, the benefits we reap is the joy of sharing and helpng others with their travel questions. Since I have traveled most of the roads from the Mississippi to the left coast I enjoy being a FREE travel agent for that area.

Wow, certainly quite a few defensive diatribes here! Why get so upset about it? Got something to lose? Curious has been given some tips about how to spot agents here now, and that seems to really irk some people! Gee, wonder which ones?

If by "ignorant" Mouse is referring to commission schemes for travel agents (and she seems to be telling us that SHE knows all about them), WAKE UP. This is the internet age, and all the old business practices have been turned on their ear. There are plenty of way to generate income, traffic and commissions through the web -- click throughs, referrals, partnerships, etc... "Preferred suppliers" (i.e. businesses that have paid you) are a very handy way for agencies not only to command flat fees from businesses, but to entice their agents to promote them by giving extra incentives. And remember, not all compensation for agents is monetary. They don't have to book travel directly to receive perks like free trips and hotel stays.

Do the research on the net and find out what the travel agents don't want you to know.

incredible...

I'll thank you, "xx," not to make any assumptions about my gender -- or were you being politically correct? Yes, I'm aware of all the ways I can be "cookie'd" into making money for people, but I also know a lot of travel agents are going broke unless they're working a heavy cruise-line clientele. Perhaps the problem here is the term "travel agent," since those involved in the various internet arrangements you have in mind are more generally PR types attached to specific corporate groups.

And thanks for "waking me up," I was beginning to doze at the keyboard......

Mouse, perhaps a nice, long break from your constant monitoring of this post would help wake you up! Isn't it about time for the travel agency to close and for you to go home?

Yes, I was about to mention that this post does indeed seem to be very closely monitored by the travel agents on this board.

It seems to me the heaviest monitoring going on here is by the get-the-agents crew, whose energy in pursuing the point covers thread after thread.

And not that I owe anyone an explanation or clarification, but it should be obvious from the timestamps that I don't post here during work hours -- and I do editorial work for a univ., have not one thing to do with travel.

But by all means, if you prefer to think anyone questioning the necessity of trashing travel agents has to be an agent, dive in. I'm tired of the subject, and "y'all" clearly prefer to wallow in your rancor. See you on some other thread on some other topic -- this is getting really old.