Art of ticketing and reservation

 The role of travel and tour agencies in the airline industry cannot be over-emphasised, as they bring relief to the travelling public. Jessica Acheampong writes

Ghana’s growing aviation industry has facilitated the growth in travel and tour agencies, which help passengers with travelling advisory services and arranging for some relevant needs.
Besides arranging travel arrangements and issuing air tickets for people, this sub-sector also offers employment opportunities for people.
Travel and tour agencies serve as the intermediaries between passengers and airlines and some of the agencies take on the additional responsibility of arranging and scheduling travel itineraries for passengers at a fee.
The agencies with their experience and expertise can advice on destination, make reservations for hotel and flight, shuttle and escort (tour guide) and virtually handle all aspects of travel arrangements for their clients.
Until the inception of the Internet, which made it possible for bookings to be done online, such reservations used to be done through phone calls and other analogue coded transmission modes. The Internet has thus come to revolutionarise the trade, making it easier, convenient, fast and cheaper.
E-Ticketing, as it is popularly referred to, has made it possible for the various airlines to give their clients the opportunity to book their flights and retrieve their tickets online.
In today’s fast changing technological world, passengers may not even need those hand bill-size air tickets anymore; just show a code to the check-in counter and you are good to pass.
Reservations could also be cancelled by the agencies over a period of time if reserved tickets are not paid for. Similarly, same day purchases of tickets attract penalties are therefore very expensive.
The travel and tour agencies, therefore, do not just arrange travelling. Some go to the extent of satisfying themselves that people have the valid travelling documents before issuing air tickets. Some agencies require applicants to either have valid VISAs or be prepared to process one, know their destinations as well as their preferred airline.
While some agencies represent airlines in countries, some also operate flights; render consulate services to countries as well as protocol services to companies and institutions.
To travel to any regional or international destination, the GRAPHIC BUSINESS found out, it requires careful planning, as fares are not only bulky, but also keep fluctuating very fast.
The Finance and Administration Manager of Sky Resources Travel and Tour Agency, Mr Emmanuel Kyland Amo-Mensah, told the Graphic Business  despite that the Internet had presented a wider platform for air travellers  to deal directly with airlines, travel agencies  still record  huge number of patrons  from their customers. 
He said the travel agency made their margins from the various airlines and as such render services to clients at no extra cost.
The Chief Executive Officer of Maxy Travel and Tours, Mr Maxwell Amepkor, however, told the Graphic Business that they got no commission on tickets sold and thus relied on fees from clients to survive.
Also reservations made by Sky Resources Travel and Tour Agency turn to be biased towards one particular airline, Emirates, which Mr Amo-Mensah said was because most of the clients were traders who would travel to destinations often plied by Emirates.
These traders according to him mostly travel to Dubai for their business hence the initiative to scale their preference towards Emirates to meet their needs.
But in sharp contrast, Mr Amekpor disclosed that being bias towards a particular airline should not be the trend in the system.
He said since the agency provided services for passengers it was their duty to rather give advice to clients on the best affordable rates and most convenient routes to take, saying “the best minimum fare is equal to best customer service.”
Giving an account of how the Internet has changed the face of their business, Mr Amo-Mensah said although the Internet had made ticketing and reservations easier, about 80 per cent of their clients prefered the agency to still retrieve their tickets online for them because most of them did not  have access to the Internet.
Although the industry, according to him, had bright prospects for growth as a result of the inception of domestic airlines and an expanding industry, there had always been a bone of contention between the agents and their service providers.
He said airlines always failed to inform agencies of special fares before communicating to the public, thereby putting their clients in a state of doubt about which fares were to be accepted.
Mr Amekpor also wants airlines to stop demand deposits for tickets to be issued, saying “we have guaranteed bonds with the airlines because we are members of the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The industry, he said, had high prospects but required a collaborative effort between the government and stakeholders to bring equity into the system in terms of travel fares and rejecting dilapidated aircraft brought into the country.