By time you read this article, I will have returned from what was likely to be one of the maddest experiences in my life; taking photographs at a solar eclipse in outback Australia.

I did it in 2001 in Lyndhurst, South Australia.  A pretty different type of “trip” from my last few destinations….Mumbai, Pune, London, Fiji, Bangkok.  But probably more of an experience than all of these things put together.

Travel means different things to different people. Most people think travel is about getting away from their normal lives, to see a pretty place. All that’s needed is a plane ticket, so why would your customers get a travel agent involved? The answer lies in what travel means to your customers.

Travel invariably means “work” a lot of the time for me.  30 to 50 plane trips and 15 or more hotel stays a year; in between it’s the relaxing and beautiful sites. But the amazing holidays, the real experiences, are when I am pushed outside my zone.  The ones that I recall in vivid detail the sounds, the smells, the new routine, the people, the conversations.

Anyone can tell you that travel is about seeing new places and gaining new experiences, but it can be so much more! It’s not just about seeing sights, it is about the memories you bring back, the stories you tell.

For a travel agent, the stories their pax tell becomes the word of mouth marketing message that generates new referrals for an agency.  People talk about experience with much more passion than they talk about places.

Travel can have a profound effect on people, but this is heavily dependent on the expertise of the organiser. A website can find a place to unwind but it takes deep knowledge to plan the journey that will move you - not from place to place - but from one great chapter of life to the next.

Unforgettable experiences come from matching the person to the place they were meant to see, and only a travel agent can accomplish this.  Build that into your trip planning, find the words, give your pax the experience that they deserve.