The journey so far has been fun, challenging, discouraging, painful, exhilarating and exciting. Documenting it here has been a conscious effort by me to encourage and give many other would be entrepreneurs the necessary motivation and clear the air about most travel agents.

When I decided to start a travel agency, I was in my final year at school. I took some time to research, observe and understand the market. I understood that the most important thing in running a travel agency is trust. Trust is essential mainly because the occupation "travel agents" has been tagged a dubious business. I observed the problems most people have with travel agents are with visa processing. Knowing this, I made a decision not to engage in visas but sales of tickets only.

Now, I mentioned above that I decided to start a travel agency at school but for some reasons, the whole process began when I was serving(I served at ilesa, Osun State). I concluded the business plan, structure and began the process of registration with CAC. I thought if I should be taken seriously, I must be registered with all the required bodies, so I was shuttling between osogbo and ilesa for the business registration. The whole process took me 2 months, though I registered my business online at Corporate Affairs Commission

new.cac.gov.ng › ...

I still had to go to their office for other procedures. I had to go get a stamp, blah blah blah. The process cost me just up to 15k. On collecting the certificate, I had to go collect TIN number which will help in registering the corporate bank account. That gave me more problem than the actual business registration. After a month or so, I got the corporate bank account ready and business was ready.

Nanta was another challenge, we got this report that we needed to be nanta compliant, the process cost just over 75k. Where to see this kind of money?.

It is however imperative to note down that before this whole procedures, we actually made 3 sales. Now nanta was here and we needed almost 80k. It was like we were never going to proceed. Lol, the lies we hear. It was like if you didn't have nanta registration, you would be located and clamped down on. It was messy.

Due to this objective, we began to aggressively search for clients, and within 2 weeks, I walked proudly into Nanta office at Fadeyi to complete the process of registration.

Our first official sale call came in August 5. It was 5:48am and this call came in. The caller was brief.

Caller: "Hello, is this Hokage Travels?

Me: morning sir, you are on to Hokage Travels, how may i...(caller cuts in)

Caller: I need 3 tickets to JFK slated to leave in the next 2 weeks. Get back to me in an hour please.

Me: Ok sir, but I'm leaving for the off...(caller drops the call)

I knew immediately the sort of person he was, but being the first customer since we got official, I wanted to give him a great offer hence making him a repeat customer.

In the next hour,

Caller: hello, so how much does it cost?

Me: sir, I'm trying to put together a great offer for you. So, I'm comparing fares and give you a very good price.

Caller: Ok

Me: Do you have a flexible travel plan?

Caller: well, A day or two is ok

Me: great, I will get back to you soonest sir

Caller: no problem, is this your WhatsApp number?

Me: yes sir

Caller: Great, I will send you the data pages of our passport.

Me: well, ok sir...

Caller: Great... Get back to me soonest(cuts the call)

I Got started immediately and after 2 hours I give my first customer a call.

Me: Hello sir, I have been able to find a great offer for you.

Caller: well, uhm that's great to hear but I already got my Tickets.

Me: I never experrerit. Oh well, I never expected that sir.

Caller: I needed to get that over with as soon as possible but you were taking time.

Me: But I was trying to get you a cheap fare.

Caller: I was never really bothered about the fare.

(My brain just reset, this guy didn't tell me this before. I would have comfortably quoted him a price without going through all the stress).

Me: Ok sir, thank you for considering Hokage Travels. We will be ready to be of service to you again in the nearest future.

Caller: thanks, really sorry for that.

Me: well... It's ok sir, have a nice day.

Note: I feel it's important to put down that on the day of his flight, I still called him to wish him a safe flight.

And that was the story of how our first customer didn't buy from us. Yet he was still our customer.

HokageTravels:
Our first official sale call came in August 5. It was 5:48am and this call came in. The caller was brief.

Caller: "Hello, is this Hokage Travels?

Me: morning sir, you are on to Hokage Travels, how may i...(caller cuts in)

Caller: I need 3 tickets to JFK slated to leave in the next 2 weeks. Get back to me in an hour please.

Me: Ok sir, but I'm leaving for the off...(caller drops the call)

I knew immediately the sort of person he was, but being the first customer since we got official, I wanted to give him a great offer hence making him a repeat customer.

In the next hour,

Caller: hello, so how much does it cost?

Me: sir, I'm trying to put together a great offer for you. So, I'm comparing fares and give you a very good price.

Caller: Ok

Me: Do you have a flexible travel plan?

Caller: well, A day or two is ok

Me: great, I will get back to you soonest sir

Caller: no problem, is this your WhatsApp number?

Me: yes sir

Caller: Great, I will send you the data pages of our passport.

Me: well, ok sir...

Caller: Great... Get back to me soonest(cuts the call)

I Got started immediately and after 2 hours I give my first customer a call.

Me: Hello sir, I have been able to find a great offer for you.

Caller: well, uhm that's great to hear but I already got my Tickets.

Me: I never experrerit. Oh well, I never expected that sir.

Caller: I needed to get that over with as soon as possible but you were taking time.

Me: But I was trying to get you a cheap fare.

Caller: I was never really bothered about the fare.

(My brain just reset, this guy didn't tell me this before. I would have comfortably quoted him a price without going through all the stress).

Me: Ok sir, thank you for considering Hokage Travels. We will be ready to be of service to you again in the nearest future.

Caller: thanks, really sorry for that.

Me: well... It's ok sir, have a nice day.

Note: I feel it's important to put down that on the day of his flight, I still called him to wish him a safe flight.

And that was the story of how our first customer didn't buy from us. Yet he was still our customer.

Wow. Lesson learnt.
Anyway, did you get your first customer with the help of nanta?

Send me your whatsapp number

Sorry I didn't post for a while, I have been busy..

The next issue was an office. We were selling tickets but people still wanted to walk in to your office at their convenience and discuss business with you. Wheeeew!!

We knew we had to resolve that issue immediately. No sooner than we planned, we got a ticket we wanted to issue and after deciding on the price and all, He insisted on coming to our office to pay. Well, since we didn't have an office, we had to liase with another top notch travel agency in Lagos for them to deal with him on our behalf, to say less, he was well attended to and he ended up trusting and buying from us again.

Everything na format

Trust at your own peril even with office sef them day scam

Update. Wants to hear more.

Shugarlord213:
Everything na format

Trust at your own peril even with office sef them day scam

Had a bad experience with an agent? too bad. Its an industry dominated by scammers ad what not. But there are still good eggs in this basket

Exactly.

Your story though. When a customer tells me, oh! I already got my ticket elsewhere.....my heart will just cut .
May God bless the work of our hands.

HokageTravels:


Had a bad experience with an agent? too bad. Its an industry dominated by scammers ad what not. But there are still good eggs in this basket

hello, please did you start as an independent travel agent or as a fully certified travel agency with IATA