Tag: Stiff Competition

Why Travel Agents are Important in your Travel Plans

Lesley Lyon asked:

A travel agent engages in purchase and sales of tour and related services of travel. Travel agents can be employees or they can do business independently. In the tourism industry if travel is considered as the leg for the industry, then the travel agents are the very important backbone of the whole system.

Even though the Internet has created revolutionary changes in the tourism industry, travel agency cannot be replaced. You are using the Internet as a travel agent for arranging your travel services. Websites of travel agents and travel suppliers are providing you their services depending totally on your needs.

As the travel industry is very competitive, being a travel agent is not an easy one. Travel agencies are under constant pressure like facing stiff competition among them and also with online portals and they have to survive with lower profit margin. There are travel agencies specializing on packages like honeymoon, health, water sports etc.

In the past, the travel suppliers used to sell their packages to the public through travel agencies. Nowadays, the usage of Internet for travel service by travel consumers has been increasing and so all the travel suppliers are opting for online travel agencies. The Travel Industry Trade Associations are linked with many Travel suppliers, Travel Wholesalers and Consolidators, though the travel suppliers have web sites on their own. The Outside Sales Support Network (OSSN) supports travel agents like home based, Independent contractors and outside sales agents with 100,000 members in it.

Being a travel consumer you can access the catalog e-vacation that includes reading of needed information and watching online videos of the destination you want to travel without any verbal communication with the travel agent. Some travel agents offer packages or services with mark up price and there are others who offer the product for the same price charged by the supplier and there is always a debate of these travel deals offered.

The United States State Department encourages group travel of US citizens while traveling abroad. The travel agencies understand this silent push and they offer services that are affordable to everyone at unbelievable price. Being a holidaymaker, there are stories revolving around them for bad services and rip-off stories. You must be wondering how to find a creditable agent for your travel services. Here are some ways by which you can find many travel agents who offer good travel services for you.

First, be clear with your travel objectives and look for travel agents offering all types of packages and travel services. Flexibility in the price offered for your travel service will make you feel comfortable with the travel agent and so a good agent must be ready for negotiation of prices with a customer. Get recommendation from other customers who have used the travel agency for their needs and always feed back is very powerful. Your network of contact will help you a lot and will give an idea of the travel agents’ competency.

Always choose agencies that wish to sustain good relationship with customers. These agents will give you the utmost benefits on the services provided by them because of expecting repeat business and for having long-term association with you. If you have found an agent who keeps his word and has offered you his best services, then you stick to him for all your travel needs.

Are Radio Stations Doing Enough For Local Music Talent?

TheBiz asked:

Radio stations have often been criticized for playing it too safe where new music is concerned. Quite often, this criticism has been justified. When radio music is listened to critically, it’s quickly apparent that examples of new music tend to closely follow the patterns of what’s currently popular. Local music is seldom, if ever, featured in preference for national and international celebrities.

Terrestrial radio stations have been subject to stiff competition from streaming music stations lately. This is really not surprising. The streaming stations offer a great deal of new music. Where the stations are closely in contact with their local communities, UK music talent has a much better chance of gaining an international audience, something with which terrestrial radio cannot compete.

Where new music radio stations are concerned, those programs that actually feature local music generally only occupy a short amount of time during the broadcast day—or week—and are not as heavily advertised as those programs which feature the most popular recording artists.

For musicians operating in a local scene, the potential for getting any help from radio is fairly sparse. Radio has become more and more dominated by fewer and fewer broadcasters and radio music has become more homogenized over the years. UK music talent, which once could rely on programs that featured the latest bands from throughout the isles, now have to compete with international acts who come with all the slick production and marketing that multi-national record labels can afford. Because of the expense of broadcasting, many of the best new music radio stations are to be found on the Internet. Of course, this sort of broadcasting carries with it an increased risk of piracy but the tradeoff might be worth it for some bands.

New music always suffers for having to develop an audience before it is taken seriously by record companies. The companies aren’t being evil or scurrilous, they’re simply trying to sell a product and only have a certain amount of capital to invest. Like any investor, they’d prefer that capital were put toward a venture that will generate revenue for them. New music is always a risk, in that regard. A band may become the next Beatles or the next nobody and there is really no way of knowing.

Radio music has essentially been transformed into a means to advertise music that is already selling well. Those artists that dominate the airwaves generally suffer no lack of publicity and are certainly not restricted to notoriety in only a local music scene. This makes it more difficult for local bands to break into the mainstream, especially if they’re playing a particularly innovative form of music that hasn’t yet garnered a large following.

Radio stations, as the world moves more toward digital formats, are likely to become less important to the world of music than they have been in the past. As they’re converted to be essentially advertising mediums, whether the advertisements be purchased by sponsors or are in the form of songs by major label’s current big sellers, their service to new music and to UK music talent is not likely to increase, barring major shifts in the market.

UK music talent would do well to look for other means of gaining popularity and, if they desire to break into those new music radio venues, they would do well to already have a following before they try. Radio is a medium that tends to increase sales once there are sales to increase, but not one which is particularly good for starting from zero.