{"id":241979,"date":"2020-01-12T00:19:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-12T05:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=241979"},"modified":"2020-01-12T00:19:23","modified_gmt":"2020-01-12T05:19:23","slug":"travel-agencies-still-thrive-amid-growing-online-platforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/01\/12\/travel-agencies-still-thrive-amid-growing-online-platforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel agencies still thrive amid growing online platforms"},"content":{"rendered":"
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TRAVEL INDUSTRY GROWTH. Officials of the Philippines Travel Agencies Association (PTAA) hold a press conference for the 27th PTAA Travel Tour Expo 2020 at the Manila Hotel on Friday (Jan. 10, 2020). PTAA President Ritchie Tua\u00f1o (center) said services offered by travel agencies are still in demand despite more people who are booking and planning their trips online. (PNA photo by Kris Crismundo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Services of travel agencies remain relevant despite the rise of online travel platforms, the Philippines Travel Agencies Association (PTAA) said Friday.<\/p>\n

In a press conference, PTAA president Ritchie Tua\u00f1o said the services offered by travel agencies are still in demand despite more people who are booking and planning their trips online.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still very much thriving. We\u2019re still discovering new destinations and new products to sell, so the business is still growing and withstanding the new competitors that come in, in terms of technology and other channels of sales,\u201d Tua\u00f1o said.<\/p>\n

He added that despite the change in the landscape of travel agents\u2019 businesses due to increasing travel-related digital platforms, agencies are relevant to particular segments of the market such as group tours and corporate trips.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this new technology that comes in, we have not been limited to a particular segment of the market. We still do individual travelers, we still do groups, maybe the individuals have lessened a bit, but we still do them,\u201d he said<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably in most cases, travelers might get good rates online. But what we would like to highlight as travel agents are the services that we offered; pre-travel and post-travel, we have your back. If things go wrong, you have always a number and a person to call. That\u2019s where we come in as travel agents,\u201d Tua\u00f1o said.<\/p>\n

Credit card users, travel spending rise<\/p>\n

The rising number of travelers in the country also translated into an increase in the number of credit card users and travel spending through credit card, Citibank Portfolio Usage head Gaurish Khanna told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would see that the travel spending on our credit cards have been growing double-digit, growing steadily since the last three years,\u201d Khanna said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has happened is credit card companies have added more and more travel offers and we started engaging more with airlines and hotel,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Khanna said banks also introduce installment features to make it more affordable to customers in purchasing bigger travel packages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can purchase bigger packages right now and can pay by installments so they don\u2019t need to worry about the immediate outflow of money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Services of travel agencies remain relevant despite the rise of online travel platforms, the Philippines Travel Agencies Association (PTAA) …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":241980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-travel","mauthors-kris-crismundo","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241981,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241979\/revisions\/241981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}