Many small agency owners are struggling today and when you ask them what they dislike the most, the answer is usually the costs and all the work that goes into the back end. Small agency owners close up shop all the time for these reasons.

There are various strategies for survival in an industry populated with vertically integrated giants, OTAs and huge retail conglomerates. One of them is to get out from under the crippling costs and workload of operating your own business.

Your small agency is subject to most of the hard costs that the much larger agencies face. So it is no wonder that many agency owners have just given up and sold when they got the chance.

You don’t have to sell

There is an alternative to selling out. Much in the same way that home-based agents rely on their host agency to take care of the many costs associated with running a business, now smaller agencies are realizing that they too can take advantage of a similar program supporting small to mid-size agencies.

Imagine no longer having to pay your own registration fees & association fees, your own errors & omissions insurance costs, your telephone system costs, your accounting costs, your website. Add this up in dollars and you’ll find it is a substantial amount annually.

And with all that off your plate, think of all the time you’d then have to focus on selling travel. And you can retain your agency’s identity if you choose to.

You also become part of a community of agents – so that when you need support, advice or information, you’ve got it.

Most of us work in travel because we love it. There are solutions for staying in this industry we love and escaping some of the onerous costs and tasks that come with running your own business. Be sure to look at all your options for survival.