How to open a travel agency from scratch. Where to start organizing. Looking for potential clients

People in the CIS countries, especially in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, love to fly abroad, travel around countries and relax, and you can make money on this by opening your own travel agency. But, if you are not a successful entrepreneur, how to open a travel agency from scratch? Step-by-step instruction with recommendations from established businessmen, clear advice and financial plan in our article.

• First steps - choosing a concept
• The first pitfalls
• Registration
• We draw up documentation
• Looking for a suitable space
• Choosing a pleasant interior
• We select personnel
• Looking for potential clients
• What are the expenses and income?

First steps - choosing a concept

There are four options on the market for a long time:

1. Private travel agency - requires renting an office, hiring staff and concluding agreements with other companies, but you won’t have to depend on other people either. The option is more suitable for those who are familiar not only with business, but also with the work of a tour operator.
2. A home travel agency is the easiest way for a newcomer to the business to inject into this environment. You don't need to rent an office and call other people, but don't expect much profit either. In this case, only a person with his own client base and skills in the marketing environment can burn out. Get ready that only the middle class of people will come to you.
3. Internet travel agency - the format of online shopping is extremely loved by people, which can allow trips to different cities and the country, because the travel agency should not go bankrupt. The main thing is that the company's website contains full information about the company itself, about vouchers and offers, and was also really convenient for an ordinary ordinary visitor. Enable the ability to communicate with the operator, select changes to the tour and pay through online wallets for the comfort of the buyer.
4. Franchising is the best format for the first business, because the newcomer is not yet ready to solve some problems on his own. The advantage of the option is that your new agency opens under the supervision of a well-known network like "World of Discovery", you are not left without attention and trust potential buyers. You will also receive some equipment, free education business, marketing campaign and such necessary at the very beginning of communication.

The first pitfalls

The least popular period for tourism is the off-season periods - several months of winter-summer + several months of autumn-winter. Of course, some bursts of activity are guaranteed, because someone has holidays, vacations or personal circumstances, but such periods must be taken care of in advance.

In the first year, it is important to intensively prepare the expansion client base through discounts for the May holidays, unusual ideas for summer holidays and promotions for trips during non-holiday months.

Take care of planning your expenses in unprofitable months, and, most importantly, it is worth opening a travel agency in early spring in order to have time to build up a client base by autumn. In the "dead" seasons themselves, your travel agency should offer the sale of air tickets, the services of a lawyer for obtaining a visa, as well as special domestic trips to the cities of the country.

Download a sample travel agency business plan as a template for your own.

Registration

There are two legal forms, you should choose based on your desires and aspirations, as well as initial capabilities.

• The first option is LLC (legal entity). Registration of a legal entity involves a mandatory large financial investment, but it makes it possible to open a whole network of travel agencies.
• The second option is Individual entrepreneur (individual). A beginner should start with this form, because the investments are quite small, and it is easier for many to collect documentation. True, situations arise when tour operators require the mandatory registration of an LLC, but they do not work with individual entrepreneurs.

We draw up documentation

Step-by-step instruction:

1. Start by choosing the name of the travel agency. Think of something sonorous, memorable, appropriate in meaning, but serious enough. Suitable, for example, "World of Discovery".
2. Pick a room. This is important for determining the address of registration of the company.
3. It is important to choose the right type of activity in a travel agency according to the classifier.
4. Pay the state fee.
5. Notarize the signature of the company registration application.

For a legal entity, it is also required to perform two more actions - to determine the authorized capital in the amount of at least 10 thousand rubles, and also to create a model of its share with its nominal value for each of several founders.

Looking for a suitable space

You will need small area located in a place with the highest traffic potential buyers. That is why travel agencies like to open in business business centers.

Be guided by the name, because, for example, "Business Ocean" accurately says that there are many entrepreneurs and office workers in the building, and everyone has a vacation. Undoubtedly, it is important that the premises be located in the city center, even if these are small regional cities like Omsk or Samara.

Choosing a pleasant interior

Design a worthy and comfortable client corner, where coffee table and comfortable small sofa for multiple people. If you want to keep your customers entertained, run a small number of travel magazines, preferably with lots of photos. The tourist model should be read in the entire design of the office - paintings, straw hats, wallpapers and other things reminiscent of tourism.

Do not be afraid to show your own "want" and creativity in the design. Be original! Employees also need their own zone. To make work processes efficient, organize desktops, comfortable computer chairs and shelving with everything you need to work. You will also need a place for a printer, copier and other important devices.

We select personnel

A travel agency as a business does not tolerate fraternization and forgiveness of mistakes, so do not agree to hire relatives and friends for anything.

Take only those who show professionalism and the ability to recognize criticism. It is very profitable to hire people with experience in tourism, but some personnel can show excellent work even without experience. Browse job candidates in the following categories:

• way and manner of speaking:
• competent construction of sentences and a pleasant presentation of thought;
• the ability to identify what needs to be put in the foreground;
• ability to perseverance, focus on a specific task;
• how seriously a person takes the tourism industry;
• the ability to present one's personality to another person;
• relaxed, stress-free communication with strangers;
• what things interest him, breadth of outlook;
• proposed ways of solving various conflict situations.

Therefore, the candidate must become a model of a person who is able to interest another in a purchase, who is able to work with people with money.

You are planning small project? Enough two or three employees to work with clients and a cleaner for the stable operation of the office. Later it is worth hiring an accountant and a programmer, with the expectation of expanding the business. As a salary for managers, offer a minimum wage, supplemented by a percentage of revenue, in order to motivate them to work more efficiently.

Choosing a reliable tour operator

In order not to miscalculate and reduce risks, sign contracts with ten different operators at once, half of which are obliged to specialize in a particular direction.

Choose the direction that is calculated by other companies as the most popular in your city or the whole region, but do not forget about unusual options.

At first, you will start to receive not so much profit, but after the first tourists, the percentage will increase. If you start showing a great example of a business project with successful sales, more offers will come from more successful operators.

There is also finished example search bases for online tours and operators, which can slightly simplify the work of your travel company. The most popular database is tourindex.ru, where access to the database is obtained for a significant fee. For a year of service, you will have to pay 26 thousand rubles, but it is up to you to decide whether it is profitable to remain without such reliable help.

Looking for potential clients

In order not to be left without customers, open your own website of the company, so that a professional web designer and system administrator all rolled into one would handle its design and content.

You can still use other advertising methods:

1. Making announcements in the media, including radio.
2. Advertising the company on billboards and banners.
3. By broadcasting ads on TV in ad blocks.
4. Hiring people to hand out flyers.
5. Motivating clients to write reviews about the agency to launch word of mouth.

Sometimes clients come to the bureau from an incomprehensible source, so it is important to constantly adjust even ready business plan, as well as keep a special journal about the channels of receipt of customers in electronic form. This will help you to do regular analytics of the statistics of attracting people to the travel agency. Do not forget about discounts, promotions and bonuses that perfectly motivate people not only to buy, but also to attract their friends and relatives.

Video: how to open a travel agency?

What are the expenses and income?

The profitability indicator is individual and depends on a variety of factors.

The very opening of a travel agency will cost about 300 thousand rubles or more, but you will also have to pay monthly rent, taxes, wages employees utilities and much more.

The average payback is almost one and a half, or even two years. In the first year, it is important for a travel agency to simply survive and stay afloat in a sea of ​​competition. This can be achieved by pleasant service, quality services, good service and competent advertising. Only having achieved the level of sales of 500 tours annually, the project moves into the class of an established business.

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AT tourism business close not only the financial side of the issue, but also his idea of ​​the possibility of traveling around the world. This business gives you the opportunity to make new friends and learn a lot of new things.

What does it take to open a travel agency from scratch?

Before deciding to open a travel agency, it is important to understand that there are two types of services in this market:

• services of a tour operator who develops a route and takes care of all organizational issues
• travel agency services. It sells the operator's ready-made tours and receives a commission percentage for this.

In turn, agencies work in two directions:

• domestic tours
• international tours

It is necessary to immediately determine the priority direction of the business. Choose the main category of tourists with which you are going to work.

more cost effective for big city is the opening of a car wash. Read the instructions about: what difficulties await, what profitability and how to build a business process.

When opening a travel agency, a guide to LLC will undoubtedly come in handy: where and how to register, what premises to rent, which tour operators to choose and whom to hire.

How to start a travel agency?

1. We choose the organizational and legal form. The tax code offers two optimal options:

• registration of a travel agency as an LLC (legal entity)

No tour operator will refuse to work with legal entity. Registration of an LLC is a more solid and fundamental approach to maintaining entrepreneurial activity. The level of trust among customers is higher than in a travel agency registered as an individual entrepreneur.

Availability required authorized capital. As a result, the registration of an LLC requires more financial investment than registering an IP.

• registration of a travel agency as an individual entrepreneur (individual)

Small costs compared to opening an LLC, the package of documents is minimal.

But not all tour operators work with travel agencies that are registered as individual entrepreneurs. The level of trust among customers is lower than for a travel agency registered as an LLC.

Special documents for opening a travel agency are not required.

2. When you have decided on the registration form, there are still a few organizational issues.

Necessary:

• pick a suitable name
• determine registration address
• select activities in accordance with the classifier
• pay the state duty
• sign the application for registration in the presence of a notary

Additionally for LLC:

• determine the size of the authorized capital (minimum - 10,000 rubles)
• if there are several founders, it is necessary to fix the size and nominal value of the share of each founder

Choose a room

For an open travel company, it is better to choose cozy room modest sizes. The best option for a travel agency - rent small spaces Enough 20 sq.m in a passing place with developed infrastructure and convenient parking.

The city center or a place of accumulation of potential tourists is the most best option office rental for a travel agency.

Particular attention should be paid to the sign. It must be bright and juicy flowers. A neon light box or three-dimensional letters will do.

We decorate the interior of the travel agency

If the room needs repair, then it will have to be done. It is important to remember here that the clients of travel agencies are not poor people. They highly appreciate coziness and comfortable environment.

For the client's corner, for the first time, it is enough to put a coffee table and a sofa. AT general interior office to add corporate identity and tourist paraphernalia.

Jobs need to be prepared for employees. For 2-3 people you will need work tables, chairs, computers, telephones, stationery, one shelving unit per office and multifunctional device with copier, printer and fax.

Take your choice of Internet Service Provider seriously. This link to the outside world can really spoil the business if there is a weak Internet speed or, even worse, systematic failures.

After all the preparations, you can receive employees.

What to look for when recruiting

A rule that applies to any business.

Do not hire your relatives and best friends! This is not a field of activity where they can provide you with all possible assistance. Friendships rarely develop into business relationships. Accept people from whom there will be a return.

Ideally, if they already have experience in a travel agency. But first of all, try to discern the personal qualities of the candidate:

• his manner of speaking
• how correct speech and competent presentation of thoughts
• Is he able to separate the main from the secondary?
• can focus on the task at hand
• how seriously he takes the matter
• how he presents himself to others
• how to communicate with strangers
• How broad is his horizon?
• how to deal with conflicts.

A travel agency is about working with people. Therefore, the quality of the applicant is more important than the accumulated experience.

Enough 2-3 managers who will deal with sales, search and customer service. At first, you can do without an accountant, a programmer and a cleaner.

The salary that motivates the staff consists of the minimum wage (5554 rubles). Everything else is interest (bonuses) from concluding contracts with clients. You should not save on this part of the salary if you want to have productive employees in your agency.

Choice of tour operator

The question is no less important than the choice of an Internet provider. The wrong choice of operator can also cause big losses to the firm.

In order to minimize all risks, it is worth concluding an agreement with at least ten tour operators. Of these, half should specialize in your main area.

For example, if a travel agency operates on a route to Egypt or Bali, then half of the operators with whom you are going to draw up an agreement must work strictly in this direction.

When choosing a tour operator, do not forget to be guided by its degree of fame, reliability, how long it has been operating in this market. The percentage of remuneration to the travel agency for the sold vouchers is 5-16% of their value.

Initial rewards are small. But as soon as the first group of tourists returns from the trip, the percentage of commissions increases depending on the tickets sold. Any tour operator is interested in increasing sales volumes, so the terms of cooperation with promising travel agencies are being reviewed.

A good help is a single search base for tours and tour operators. The most common tourindex.ru. Acquiring access to the database will greatly facilitate the work. The cost of annual maintenance on the site is about 26,000 rubles.

Registration on the site tour-box.ru will help a young travel agency. After registration, access to the tour booking system will be provided.

All preparatory work finished. You can take the first clients, but where to get them?

Customer acquisition

First clients are remembered for a long time. There are many ways to attract and ... a lot.

Even at the stage of opening a travel agency, it is desirable to create your own company website. This will greatly facilitate the work of finding customers. Today is the most effective tool to find clients.

A professionally created and competently launched contextual advertising can dramatically increase the flow of those wishing to use tourist services.

It is equally important to master e-mail marketing and build your own subscriber/customer base.

Do not neglect and write off well-known search options:

• media advertising
• banner ads and billboards
• radio announcements
• broadcast on television channels
• connection of promoters for the distribution of leaflets
• word of mouth

Clients sometimes have a habit of showing up suddenly, from where you don't expect them at all. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct regularly electronic journal channel of new customers. Based on it, conduct analytics and statistics.

In order for new customers to become regular, often provide discounts, bonuses, periodically hold promotions.

Is it profitable to open a travel agency: payback and profitability

Three main questions before opening a travel agency.

• How much does it cost to open a travel agency?
• How quickly will the investment pay off? Is it beneficial?
• What yield should be expected?

Before answering the first question, it is worth remembering how much money was spent. Each has its own investment. Everyone is individual, so the numbers are very approximate.

According to the most conservative estimates, investments range from 300,000 rubles. and higher.

With a correctly chosen strategy and the absence of "pitfalls", you can count on the payback of a business in six months.

And then comes the most crucial moment. To hold on, gain a foothold and confidently take their place in the business of providing tourist services.

An indicator of confidence that you have reliably strengthened your position is the sale of 500 tours per year. When this figure is reached, you can count on a stable monthly net profit in the range of 50,000-100,000 rubles.

What is profit made up of?

This is the percentage of tours sold by the travel agency of the tour operator with whom the contract was concluded. After the sale, the travel agency collects its percentage and transfers the remaining amount to the operator's account or vice versa. First, the entire amount is given to the operator, and the operator then transfers the percentage to the agency.

Sufficiently wide range boundary corridor net profit depends on the season. The tourism business is seasonal view business.

Dead season: forewarned is forearmed

For a newly minted travel agency, the off-season is the biggest test. For the first two years, loss planning will be the wisest decision. But this is not enough.

If you approach this issue wisely, then you need to start preparing for winter in April, before the upcoming May holidays.

During the off-season there is a system of discounts. This is specially done in order to somehow attract tourists and stay afloat.

Additional types of income when there are no people who want to go on vacation:

• visa processing services
• self-sale of air tickets

The main work is to increase the client base. In the low season, you can always offer your customers vouchers to holiday homes and domestic tours in Russia.

How to develop a travel agency: a further strategy

When the travel agency is firmly on its feet, it is worth switching to new stage development. It makes sense for a travel agency to go to new status by registering as a tour operator.

With mass tours, some difficulties may arise due to high competition. Therefore, at first it is better to focus on the formation of an individual tour for your regular customers. Here you are free to set your own prices.

Additionally, you will need:

• purchase a liability insurance policy
• enter the Unified Federal Register of Tour Operators

How to start a franchise travel agency

A very good option for beginners in the tourism business. There are two types of franchising:

• independent travel agencies of federal significance with a developed regional network
• tour operator retail

Isn't it easier to buy a travel agency franchise?

Certainly this is the simplest solution. With the acquisition of a franchise, you have all the conditions in order not to go bankrupt in the first year and not fly out of this market.

You are getting:

• ready-made business model
• ready brand
• contact with the tour operator
• streamlined business processes

You just have to choose a quality franchise. Of course, it costs money, but this investment is guaranteed to save your travel agency from bankruptcy.

There are well-known tourist franchises on the Russian market:

• Hot tours (http://www.hott.ru)
• Orange (http://apelsin.travel)
• 1001 tour (http://www.1001tur.ru)

And in order to keep abreast of developments in the tourism business market, do not forget to follow the news of Rostourism, keep your finger on the pulse and periodically look at the Law "On Tourism".

How to open a travel agency at home?

Unfortunately, experts do not advise doing this. There are practically no successful examples. Opening a travel agency at home is not solid, does not inspire the confidence of tourists and creates additional minor problems. Yes, and inviting people to the office is much more respectable than to your apartment. Of course, you can make appointments with tourists in public places, but the effect of such meetings is doubtful.

Last year, more than 50 million Russian tourists traveled around the country and around the world. Compared to 2016, outbound tourism has grown by almost a third, and many new destinations and routes have been opened on the domestic market. Many aspiring entrepreneurs are interested in how to start a travel business and how to open an agency from scratch? How much money should be invested in a business? How to register? The answers to these questions are in our article.

How to open a tour desk

Pros: This direction practically does not require investments. Even a student can try himself as a guide, if he knows the sights of the city, tells fascinating stories and easily finds mutual language with different people.

Minuses: short season. In winter, there are much fewer tourists.

Step 1. Choose a route

It is necessary to carefully consider the routes of excursions: drive tourists around the city or organize field trips. Choose a topic for city routes. For example, “Temples and Monasteries”, “Beauty of the Night City”, “Historical Sites”, etc. Car owners organize individual tours around the city and its surroundings.

In order to open a travel company from scratch and conduct field trips, it is not necessary to buy a bus. Make an agreement with the local bus fleet, they will provide transport to the start of the tour.

In addition to excursions, the entrepreneur conducts hiking trips, takes vacationers on a fishing trip or to mushroom and berry places.

Step 2. Organize a company

If you don’t want trouble with the tax authorities, it’s better to immediately open an individual entrepreneur and register with the Federal Tax Service and the Pension Fund.

Next, you have two options: keep accounts and submit reports to the tax office on your own or hire a specialized one. enough on the market wide selection- from lone accountants to large holdings. When choosing, you need to focus on the range of services, guarantees and customer reviews. it is better to contact reliable companies, for example,. The cost of such services can be viewed

Develop a price. The cost of tourism business services differs from the route and additional services. If you organize an hour-long walking tour, then its price is from 150 rubles per person; if a bus trip with a visit to museums, then the price will be over 1000 rubles. But part of the profits must be paid for the rental of buses and tickets to the museum.

As long as you work without assistants, you don't need an office. Applications are accepted through social networks or personal website.

Prepare a package of documents:

• Contract for services.
• Reminder for the tourist.
• Route description.

Step 3. Calculate investment and payback

The minimum investment is 800 rubles for the state duty when registering an individual entrepreneur. The rest depends on the budget: spend money on contextual advertising or promote services for free; rent an office or work from home; buy a car for individual excursions or organize walking routes.

It is advantageous to develop a route and offer it to a travel agency. The firm attracts clients, and you only drive groups along the route.

After you have opened a mini-travel agency, you can calculate the profit. The price of a walking tour is 150 rubles, middle group 20 people. Income per hour of work 3000 rubles. You can conduct 3-5 excursions per day and earn up to 15,000.

How to open a travel agency from scratch on a franchise

Pros: promoted brand and ready-made business plan. Anyone can open without experience in the travel industry and without knowing how to open a travel agency from scratch. The entrepreneur receives from the franchisor partner ready scheme company operation and start-up assistance.

Minuses: additional expenses for lump sums and royalties.

Step 1. Choose a franchise

There are many dummy franchises offered online, so choose your partner carefully.

The selection criteria are presented below.

How many years has the company been on the market? Newcomers do not guarantee the viability of the franchise, as they themselves have just opened. To start a tourism business in Russia, it is better to choose a brand that has been around for more than 5 years.

• How many franchises have been opened and for how long? If the network is developed, and franchisees have been working for at least 1 year, you can count on success.
• How much does a franchise cost? The seller usually names only the amount of the lump-sum fee and royalties. It is necessary to take an interest in what other expenses are coming and in what amount.
• What support does the franchisor promise? If you don’t know how to open a travel agency on your own from scratch, then it’s better to enlist support for the first 2-3 years.

More than 7.5 million tourists visit St. Petersburg annually

Do you want to open a travel agency? Introducing best advice that will help you open your own travel agency without any problems! We take note.

Do you love to travel?

Do you know how to properly organize a trip, choose routes and which museums to visit?

It is likely that you do not mind.

How do you like the idea to open your own travel agency?

So, let's go to analyze all the pros and cons on the shelves! 🙂

How to open a travel agency and what you need to know for this?

Tip #1: The most important thing is that you must understand that this business is complex and does not bring super profits!

At successful work you can earn, but it will not be "mad" money.

As, in fact, they will not be in other areas, if you are not involved in weapons, drugs and smuggling.

Tip #2: In the travel business, you are selling a service, and the quality of that service is entirely up to you!

There are two players on the market: tour operators that form a tourist product and travel agencies that sell this tourist product.

One product for everyone travel companies, so your success depends entirely on .

Tip number 3: In many cities, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg for sure, there are courses for those who want to open their own travel agency.

Weekly courses, are relatively inexpensive, useful in terms of the legislative framework.

But if you do not have the opportunity, do not be discouraged, stock up on patience and perseverance and devote ten days to independently study all the legislative documents in this area.

The activities of travel companies themselves are not licensed, so you do not need to obtain a license.

But knowing all the laws is a must!

Tip #4: Choosing the location of the office where your company will be located is one of the decisive success factors.

The company should be located in a passageway, preferably with shop windows to the street.

The presence of a nearby transport stop, subway, a large supermarket is almost a must.

It would also be nice to contact a branding agency that will develop a creative and bright style Your company, which is very important!

You need to stand out and always be in trend and people will reach out to you! 😉

Thanks to the flow of people, you can attract the attention of potential customers with discounts and promotions!

Tip #5: You can choose to franchise, that is, go under the name of a well-known network of travel agencies.

In this case, there are both minuses and pluses.

Pros: Already famous name, booking program, joint advertising.

Cons: Entry fee and recurring franchise payments. Here the choice is yours.

For those who are on fire with the idea of ​​​​opening their own travel agency,

Where to turn your attention?

Well, the most important thing in the tourism business is word of mouth and the return of customers!

There is no need to recruit managers right away, because at first you will probably be able to manage on your own.

The main thing is to study all the information, conclude agreements with tour operators, master the booking system and fight.

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