Travel & Tourism: Agency or Freelance?

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Contemplating Travel Options

Agency or Independent Contractor?

Most travelers and tourists who seek to travel in places that they only ever read about or see in advertising posters and magazines usually use the services of an agency: Thomas Cook for instance. The advantage of agencies are that they have built a series of travel networks globally and that arrangements for package tours and for individually designed travels are easier to put together, usually within the client's price range. Agencies are specialists in well-trodden tourist destinations and have specialized in varied sorts of travel arrangements - for the budget conscious, for corporate retreats, for weddings, for sports, for nature and adventure. The likes of STA Travel for example specialize in providing the most affordable travel arrangements for students and for young people with their 'kind' of travel adventure, budget and choices in mind at destinations that excite them. They can also arrange volunteer travel and gap year travels. It is not only the budget or specialization that attracts people to agencies - it is the fact that agencies are corporate entities and therefore when contracts are signed and arrangements paid for - said agencies are required by law to fulfill their end of the bargain giving the client that certain confidence in the arrangement. But package tours and agency arranged tours usually have a lot of middlemen in between and being stuck in a tour bus is something not many tourists and travelers appreciate. Independent contractors are usually hired for specialist travelling - like for example, safaris in Africa or as guides in the least trodden places tourists do not usually seek to visit.

In Mongolia for example, independent contractors are far more efficient than agencies as independent contractors use their own personal network to make travel arrangements. There are only a few agencies in the capital, Ulaan Baatar and as Mongolian tourism is not as profitable and busy as Thailand tourism, to see Mongolia means doing independent travel using the independent contractors via the traveler's own personal arrangement. People who seek to 'travel outside' the tourist path are two kinds - those who find fulfillment in doing so, and others who must as part of their work - journalists, researchers, surveyors, businessmen, scientists, etc. Those who find fulfillment either have the finances to do so which equates to an easier time in being able to find contractors from ...