What Is the Best Website for Travel Agents?

Most of the trip purchases happen online. To maximize your sales, it’s important to have a functional travel website showcasing your trips. While designing a website for travel agents might seem like an extensive project with significant costs, there are ways to have an affordable website without sacrificing quality and your time. This article will present the pros and cons of building a travel website alone, hiring an agency, and using a pre-build travel website. We’ll also share the five key features to consider for your travel agent website. 

Building a Travel Website Vs. Pre-built Travel Website

There are a few different options to compare before building a travel website. While you can create a website on your own, you can also hire an agency or choose a pre-built website. In case you want to go at it alone, be realistic with your time and technical abilities. Working with a professional agency can result in a stunning website, but with higher costs. While a pre-built website is an affordable option, you might lack customization possibilities. All three options have their advantages and disadvantages. Find out which one is the best for your travel business. 

1. Building a Travel Website on Your Own

While building a travel website on your own might seem like a budget-friendly option, it usually ends up costing more. For instance, if you want to build a website using WordPress, you will need to consider all of the cost implications. WordPress has subscription-based plans. Subscription ranges from around 50€ to 540€ per year. 

Even though you can start with a free plan, you’ll have limited storage space, fewer themes, and basic customization options. Each of the subscription plans has their set of advantages and disadvantages. The basic plan doesn’t include customer support, and with premium subscription you don’t get SEO and analytic tools. 

Additionally, if you’re a beginner and it’s your first time building a travel agent website, the end result might look disappointing. Information you want to display often doesn’t correspond with the theme design. Plus, absence of professional support and a constant need for independent learning can cause a lack of motivation to finish your travel website. Along with a lack of motivation, you’re probably already quite busy with your travel business. However, for building your travel website you’ll need extensive time for research. 

2. Hiring an Agency for Building a Travel Website

In case 540€ for a yearly subscription seems a lot, hiring an agency for building a travel website can cost you over 5000€. You should also consider web hosting and domain costs. While web hosting can range from 30€ to 500€ per year, domain is a one-time fee. Domain prices usually vary depending on the popularity of the chosen domain name. 

Despite a professional design when building a travel agent website with an agency, you’ll depend on their support for any updates or malfunctions. Moreover, you’ll be tied to paying a monthly or yearly maintenance fee. Unfortunately, many agencies aren’t responsive after building a website. Sometimes they lack the manpower or knowledge to fix the website issues. In these scenarios, travel agents have to deal with the issues on their own. 

Similar to building a website on your own, you might not be too happy with the results. Picking the right agency that understands your business needs is a project on its own. When you’ve paid for the service and you’re not satisfied with your travel website, it’s going to be difficult to return your investment. Also, you might need to engage another agency to repair the damage. Repairing a website design entails even more costs. 

3. Choosing a Pre-built Travel Website

With TripMatrix all-in-one travel agency software, you’ll get a free pre-built travel website. TripMatrix’s pre-built website was developed in cooperation with travel agents. It has travel industry-specific features such as a web booking engine, filtering options for trip browsing, and trip itinerary overview. 

Content management system (CMS) is integrated into TripMatrix software. When you log into the travel agency software, you can access and edit website information. CMS has an intuitive interface and is easy to use. As a travel agent, you won’t need any special technical skills or additional training to understand how it works. However, before committing to purchasing a TripMatrix travel agency software with a pre-built travel website, you can request a demo. 

Furthermore, TripMatrix provides customization options. You can add your branding color, display your logo, and connect your social media links. A pre-built travel website is divided into four dedicated pages: Home, All Trips, About Us, and Custom Trip. In the CMS, you can easily organize and fill out all the information to complete your website.  

5 Key Features of the Website for Travel Agents

The travel industry is competitive. With so many travel agencies around the world, you want to stand out from the crowd. A functional travel website with stunning photos and organized information might be a good way to do so. In this portion of the blog post, we’ve highlighted the five most important features of an engaging travel agent website. 

1. Integration with Travel Agency Software 

Centralizing all the information to run your day-to-day travel business is a time saver. With everything you need organized in one place, you won’t need to pay for different tools. TripMatrix is an all-in-one travel agency software. Besides integrated CRM, powerful trip builder, and product inventory, you’ll get a pre-built website for travel agents. 

When you want to add or update your website information, you’ll be able to do it just by logging into your TripMatrix interface and clicking on the CMS tab in a menu. Editing the TripMatrix travel agent website is intuitive and easy. You’ll need to type in your travel agency information in dedicated fields. All the information will be automatically saved and updated. Plus, any client request from the website will be automatically recorded in the TripMatrix Trip requests tab. 

2. Detailed Trip Information

If you’re using TripMatrix, you’ll be able to build trips and send offers to your clients. For instance, even if the trip offer doesn’t get accepted, you can still reuse the trip you’ve made. TripMatrix gives you the possibility to showcase all the trips you’ve made on your website for travel agents. You can always edit each trip and update the information. 

Every trip you add to your travel website will display Details, Itinerary, Accommodations, Experiences, and Destinations. The details tab includes information such as trip duration, number of passengers, and a short description of the trip. The itinerary provides day-to-day descriptions of all the products. Accommodations, Experiences, and Destinations consist of products from each category in the trip. On the right side, there’s also a price estimation along with a form to request a quote. 

3. Excellent User Experience 

Potential clients browse your travel website on different devices. Mobile devices made up 49.78% of all web visits, while desktops accounted for the remaining 50.22%. Considering mobile users are overgrowing the number of desktop users, it’s important your website has an excellent mobile user experience. TripMatrix’s pre-built website for travel agents is already optimized for users on different devices. 

4. Website Policies for Legal Compliance 

Each travel agent’s website should comply with legal requirements. Considering potential clients fill out forms to request a quote or send a trip inquiry, their data should be protected. While privacy policy is mandatory when collecting client personal data, terms of service are recommended. Plus, you should have a cookie policy. TripMatrix’s website for travel agents has dedicated text boxes for all the policy info. 

5. Social Media Buttons

If you are regularly posting to your social media accounts and have a significant following, you would want to transform your audience into clients. Having a travel agent website in your Instagram account description can boost your credibility. You’ll also redirect your audience to browse through your trip offers. It can work both ways. In case you have many website visitors, you can turn them into social media followers where you update them on the latest offering. TripMatrix travel website has built in social media buttons for your Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. 

Maximize Online Sales with TripMatrix’s Pre-built Travel Website

Are you looking to centralize your travel agency operations? With TripMatrix you’ll get all-in-one travel agency software. Centralize your operations with integrated CRM, powerful trip builder, product inventory, and payment processing. As an additional feature free of charge, you’ll get a pre-built travel website. TripMatrix website is easy to manage and is tailored to travel agent needs. 

Want more information on TripMatrix travel agency software? 

Contact us, request a demo, or read more blog posts.