Damage Control: How to Manage Travel Emergencies

Most people dream of travelling to distant lands and experiencing all the rich diversity this planet offers. Of course, this doesn’t mean that people only travel for this reason. Business, work, family trips, domestic vacations are all common reasons as well.

Travel has become an essential part of modern life. Unfortunately, while the means to travel have certainly come a long way, the experience itself can be very subjective. Most people love travelling but dislike various aspects such as planning, budgeting, managing bookings, coordinating with people, and most importantly, dealing with uncertainty.

Travelling naturally brings a lot of uncertainty into our lives. Going to a location that you’re unfamiliar with can be rewarding and challenging at the same time. This is why travel agents have become so important. Travel agents can help people navigate the trickiest parts of travelling expertly.

They can handle bookings, itineraries, activities, accommodation, transport and prepare the best plans to ensure that everything goes as smoothly as possible. Unfortunately, even the best-laid plans can collapse in an instant. It is during such times that the best travel agents distinguish themselves.

We are, of course, talking about travel emergencies. If you’ve never had to experience one, count yourself lucky. Those who have to know exactly how crucial it is to have someone who can help out at the drop of a hat.

If you’re a travel agent wondering how to add these skills to your repertoire, read on!

How to Handle Travel Emergencies

Here’s how you, as a travel agent, can endear yourself to your clients by helping them navigate travel emergencies.

Stay Available

This may sound like very basic advice, but it can make a world of difference. Your client is in another country, which means that they are likely to reach out to you in case of an emergency. You’re the only familiar thing they know, so this is expected. Of course, the time difference can mean that they won’t always reach out at the most convenient time.

This is why staying available is so important. Some of the most common travel emergencies are lost belongings, misplaced luggage, vehicle breakdown, or medical emergency. In any case, you’re the person who knows the location better than them, so you can help them out better than anyone else they have access to.

If you’re available, you can provide guidance and solutions to travellers. This is a relationships business, so your efforts will eventually be rewarded in referrals and repeat clients.

Recommend Travel Insurance

One of the most effective ways of managing a travel emergency comes well before any travelling takes place. Very few people deem travel insurance a necessary expense and often forgo the chance to get some.

The thing about insurance, as everyone knows, is that you don’t need it until you do. Most clients underestimate the importance of travel insurance. You should sit down with them and explain how it protects them from unnecessary expenses on their trip.

A medical emergency while travelling can cost a lot of money that the travellers hadn’t originally budgeted for. This sort of situation can often also create a dual loss, first the medical problem itself and then the resultant expense.

Travel insurance protects your clients from these expenses. It also allows them to feel as safe and secure on their travels as possible. Some of the best travel agents recognize that clients want to avoid as many unnecessary expenses as possible but insist on travel insurance regardless.

Stay Alert

This kind of applies to both travellers and travel agents. You should ask your clients to stay alert and up-to-date with all information about their travels. You should also do so yourself and keep your clients in the loop about anything that you learn.

For instance, you should know if there are any outbreaks of contagious diseases in the area your clients are visiting. You should also follow weather forecasts to know if your clients might not be able to travel due to poor weather conditions. Their flight may get delayed, or bookings may get cancelled due to situations in the host country.

The best travel agents keep abreast with all developments because they know that this is the only way to solve travel emergencies promptly.

Prepare in Advance

You should have a meeting with your clients before they travel where you give them a few pointers about the locality and the city that they’re travelling to. This meeting is meant to familiarise them with the location before they visit.

Clients should be told what areas to avoid, the well-known scams at popular tourist attractions, emergency numbers that they should have saved in their phones, and their options in case of emergencies. These options can include hospitals and police stations in their immediate vicinity.

As the travel agent, you should familiarize yourself with all these items as well. If you receive a call in the middle of the night, you won’t have to google anything and provide assistance immediately.

Final Word

Travel emergencies are as common as they are frustrating; however, the best travel agents can prevent most of them before they arise. Furthermore, travel agents are expected to know the best way to navigate through them even if one does arise.

As a travel agent, you need to recognize that clients put a lot of faith in you. A good travel agent can manage a bad situation in such a way that it hardly even registers for the client.