In an era where personal service has given way to travel web sites and 800 numbers with long wait times and poor service, Prestige Travel Leaders Cincinnati travel agency has already created quite a buzz with its approach to client service. For starters, Prestige aligned itself by becoming a Travel Leaders affiliate.

Dave Hershberger, Vice President of Cincinnati’s Prestige Travel Leaders tells us, “We’ve been in business since 1974 and have seen a lot of companies come and go. Travel Leaders was the perfect partner for us. They were ranked first among travel management companies by the Business Travel News in 2009 survey and in Travel Weekly’s Top 10 Power List of America’s travel sellers.”

“They have a suite of web technology products for business travel that really meet the needs of our most demanding corporate travel accounts. In addition, their package of internet products for our vacation clients is second to none for finding all types of vacation products like cruises, tours, resorts, hotels, airline tickets and rental cars. As an affiliate, we’re able to offer clients special discounts and services and compete with the largest online and offline travel companies.”

Over the past decade, thousands of travel agencies either went out of business or dramatically cut back on personal service as the agency market changed dramatically. Prestige bucked the trend by adding new clients and new agents. Late in 2009, Prestige moved to a smaller retail office and set up several of their staff as virtual travel agents with home offices.

According to Hershberger, “It didn’t make a lot of sense to keep such a large retail space when so many of our clients prefer to work with their agent over the phone or to use our web products. This is the best of both worlds for everybody concerned. Clients can visit us, call us or visit www.prestige-travel.com to make business or travel reservations. We know a lot of smaller agencies just shut down their offices and work from home. Our clients clearly preferred to work with an established agency with a local office.”

By combining a phone technology known as Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, with specialized online airline reservation and booking systems, Prestige’s virtual agents have access to all the tools that are in the local office. Hershberger also mentioned that, by working from home, the agents save the time and money associated with commuting to Montgomery. His system also has a management module that allows him or his brother and partner, Pete Hershberger, to login and view what the agents are working on at any time of the day.

Industry experts believe that this is definitely the trend of the future. In a struggling economy, efficiency is the key to insuring a healthy bottom line.

“Many of our competitors were unable to survive. Fortunately, here at Prestige Travel Cincinnati Travel Agents,we’ve been in a position to be able to afford to invest in our business to stay profitable,” says Hershberger. “We’re quite excited about the future. There are several great enhancements and services we’ll be able to offer to our clients.

A lot of people were writing off travel agents as victims of technology but a large number of travelers, whether planning a business trip or a vacation, find that having an experienced expert on their side saves them time, money and makes their trips smoother and more enjoyable.

For more information, visit http://www.travelleaders.com/.

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