Magazines
Travel agents and apps make holidaying a breeze.
By Evelyn Situma
A couple of years back, a colleague who wanted
to travel out of the country was referred to a travel agent by someone
from the office. She needed one to help her book a flight to the US.
Somehow, she didn’t have the agent’s direct
contact making tracing him an uphill task. To save on time, she opted to
shop around for a ticket on her own.
However, at the last minute, just when she was about to pay for what she thought was a good deal, the travel agent rang her.
“The agent requested me not pay for the ticket. He
instead asked me to give him time to check around for additional offers
with the promise that he would get back to me with something better
than what I already had,” she said.
When he finally got back to her, he had good news.
“He got me a ticket that was several hundreds of dollars less than what
I would have bought,” she exclaimed. Since then, she says, she has
always used the services of a travel agent whenever she wants to travel.
According to her “it takes the stress of spending
countless hours scouring for travel sites that may not yield much.
Since this is their job, agents know exactly who has good deals and
when.”
Such is the experience of millions of travellers
around the world who often get caught up in the complexities of
organising for trips.
Many travellers agree that it’s frustrating to get
things together on your own. For instance, many of the travel agents
take care not only of getting you a cheaper ticket, but they also take
care of travel visa applications using websites they are familiar with.
With Easter looming large, many people will be
travelling within the country and outside. That’s why we decided to look
at certain things that have revolutionised travelling and made it much
easier for people.
Websites and travel applications are some of the tools travellers are now using to ease their experiences.
Magical Skies, EatOut, SleepOut.co.ke are local examples of websites that have made travel much easier for Kenyans.
Established in 2012 by former Kenya Airways
commercial manager Mohan Chandra, Magical Skies serves to seal gaps in
tourism by creating safari packages that enable travellers to look, book
and pay online for whatever travel and accommodation services they
seek.
“The old method of booking and finding information
about Kenya has been difficult to the extent that some tourists got
discouraged about visiting the country,” says Mohan. This website, in a
way, saves people the hustle of researching online for hours or days on
the best accommodation, flight or destination.
Magical Skies has consolidated information and
deals on safari, flights, hotels, rail journey, car rentals and medical
packages into a one-stop-shop.
Customers using the service can easily compare
airfares and access all airline schedules from the site. “Plus we have
over 150,000 hotels worldwide for our clients to choose from depending
on their destination,” adds Mohan.
No comments :
Post a Comment