A travel advisor website that carries your own name

What your week looks like without a travel advisor website

An independent travel advisor works by referral and has nowhere to send the referral. A past client tells a friend about you, the friend messages you, and the first thing they ask for is a link. You send a social profile, or a phone number, or nothing at all.

The work itself is fine. You know which resort has the quiet pool and which flight lands early enough to save a night. What is missing is the frame around it. You research on other companies' sites, you copy the details into a message, and then you send the client to one of those companies to pay. The trip you designed is booked somewhere with someone else's name at the top.

That has two costs. The booking goes to a business that is not yours, so the markup goes with it. And the client keeps the confirmation email, forwards it to the next friend who asks, and the name in that email is not yours either. For an advisor whose business is entirely word of mouth, that is the referral leaking away at the last step.

There is a smaller daily cost too. Without a site of your own you answer every question by hand: the check in window, whether the room sleeps three, whether the fare can be changed. You become a search assistant for people who would happily search for themselves if you gave them somewhere to do it.

How your own site changes the way clients see you

A travel advisor website gives the referral a place to land. OTA Builder creates a travel booking website under your own brand, name and domain, selling flights, hotels and activities, and building it, running it and selling on it are free.

The next friend who asks for a link gets a site with your name on the header, your colors, and a search box that works. They look at flights on their own time. They read the hotel policy before they pay rather than asking you at 11pm. They pay on your site, and the voucher arrives from a business that carries your name.

Your part of the day shrinks to the part only you can do. You still tell them which floor to ask for and which day to arrive. You stop retyping the deposit policy. Once you sign up, your site is live within one working day.

Marcus is a fictional independent travel advisor invented for this page. He works alone, takes about 10 referrals a month, and has never had a website.

Round numbers, for illustration only:

• He sets a markup of 6 percent on hotels, $20 per passenger on flights, and 10 percent on activities.
• A five night hotel found at $1,000 shows on his site at $1,060.
• Two return flights found at $600 each show at $640 each.
• A cooking class for two found at $100 shows at $110.
• The client books the three together and pays $2,450 on Marcus's own site.

The referral that sent that client a link never saw another company's name. These numbers are illustrations, not a typical result.

Illustration only, not a typical result.

The three features that matter most to an advisor working alone

Three things do the heavy lifting for an independent advisor: your brand on everything the client sees, hotel policies visible before payment, and activities that finish the trip.

Your brand on every page and every email

Your site carries your brand name, your colors and your domain, and you can change the name and colors at any time. On the free plan you get a free subdomain on ota-sites.com and a small "Built with OTA Builder" line in the footer, and you can use your own domain on the free plan too. The $99 per year bundle includes a free domain of your choice, removes that footer line and adds premium support. Clients receive tickets and vouchers by email, and the hotel voucher carries your site's name. How it works walks through the setup end to end.

Hotel policies a client can read before paying

Hotel search on your site covers a whole city or one property across 5,000,000+ hotels and properties. Each result shows room size, bed types, photos and full policies: the check in window, children, pets, meals and deposits. Those are the details an advisor is usually asked to confirm by message, and they sit on the page where the client is already deciding. See how to add hotel booking to your travel website for the longer explanation, or the definition of a hotel policy.

Activities to round out the trip

Your site sells 2,500+ activities, searchable by destination, with ticket types by age and a voucher by email. A client who has booked a flight and a hotel from you can add the museum and the boat trip in the same place, instead of arriving with two free afternoons and no plan. How to sell tours, activities and attraction tickets online covers what that looks like in practice.

Independent, with an address

Working alone and looking established are not opposites. The site holds the front of the business: a name, a domain, a search, a checkout and confirmation emails. You hold the part clients actually pay you for, which is knowing what to book.

If you have been sending clients to other companies' pages and taking a share, travel affiliate links vs your own booking website sets out the difference plainly. Pricing covers what is free and what the bundle adds. If you sell mostly from an inbox full of quote requests rather than referrals, the page for travel agents without a website may fit you better.