Every year in our country more and more travel companies and agencies are opened. This trend leads to the fact that today's media is full of various advertising offers from well-known and completely unfamiliar travel agencies. Naturally, the quality of service, the variety of opportunities offered by the operator, significantly differ from each other. There are both unscrupulous and unscrupulous companies, which portends a choice based on the safety criteria of their trip to a particular country. Despite this, it is impossible to argue about the inadvisability of opening a tourism business, since there is a share of companies that achieve outstanding success, despite the large number of established large companies.
How to open a travel agency
According to ordinary citizens, to open a travel agency does not require any complex processes. This is the main mistake of those who, not having the necessary information, are trying to get a small share of this market. For a travel agency it’s not enough to rent an office, create a room decoration, put a telephone and the Internet, put a manager in and receive calls. The complexity of the whole process is already noticeable at the stage of opening your own tourism business.
So, how to open a travel agency so that there are no conceptual problems? First of all, the future company must obtain a license to carry out tourism activities. In order for the higher authorities to apply for a license, you must comply with the requirements prescribed by law. A license is issued in the presence of 20% of employees with higher, additional or secondary education in the field of tourism, or at least 3 years of work experience.
As for the head of the company, the same requirements apply to him, but having a three-year experience is a mandatory requirement. The Department of Tourism of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia handles licenses. The license is valid for 5 years. In addition, the documentation of a travel agency should include a certificate confirming that the company has a room where it operates. Thus, a license cannot be obtained without having the legal premises of the company.
The essence of the tourism business
Asking the question of how to open a travel agency, it is necessary to solve a number of important issues for yourself. In the process of creating an action plan for the implementation of the project, do not confuse a travel agency with a travel operator. The latter performs a great function, cooperating with world resorts and recreation centers, providing travel agencies with permits for various tours. At its core, a travel agency is an intermediary between a consumer and a tour operator, where it receives its profit, based on a percentage of the transaction.
According to the recommendation of experts, initially you need to arrange all the positions of opening a business in places, therefore, we decompose the points of the process of opening a travel agency:
- registration of a company as a legal entity with the legal form of LLC;
- search and rental of premises (no more than 20-25 square meters);
- collecting and obtaining licenses and documentation;
- repair and decoration of the premises;
- office equipment;
- acquisition of access to a single database of tour operators;
- staff search;
- advertising and customer search.
As legal form optimally choose a limited liability company.This will help minimize tax deductions, in addition, many tour operators refuse to work with companies registered as individual entrepreneurship.
The cost of registering an LLC depends on whether you collect and submit documentation yourself or order such a service in specialized companies. Thus, the average cost of registration reaches 10,000 rubles. It is worth noting that the LLC must have a seal, the cost of which is 500-800 rubles.
Touching upon the issue of premises, one can argue endlessly, therefore, we single out the most popular option for placing a travel agency office. Most successful firms are located in the central city, near the main streets, as well as in places with increased traffic and crowding. The maximum effect of the premises is achieved when it serves as additional advertising. The effect of such advertising can be up to 40% of customers.
Since the license was mentioned above, it is only worth recalling the need to obtain it in the presence of a ready-made office and company documentation.
A developing travel agency may also consist of several employees. It’s not scary if only one manager will work in the office. It should be noted that the personnel search should be carried out competently, since a large percentage of clients come from the fact that the manager has experience in talking with clients. Never forget about the external image of the company. That is, such a comment involves the creation in the office of a thematic design attractive to customers.
Today, one of the effective methods of advertising is the Internet. This trend forces many travel agencies to create their own sites, where all the information about the availability and cost of tours, the quality and features of the proposed resorts, etc. is located. Naturally, in this case, you should maintain a website, which costs 2000-3000 rubles.
Travel agency financial plan
So, the financial plan will be able to fully answer the question of how much it costs to open a travel agency.
- LLC registration - up to 10,000 rubles;
- printing - up to 800 rubles;
- rental of premises for the first month - up to 25,000 rubles;
- furniture, office equipment and decoration - from 50 000 rubles;
- site content - from 500 rubles;
- base of tour operators - from 20,000 rubles;
- Internet, telephony - up to 1000 rubles;
- advertising - from 15 000 rubles.
Thus, the cost of the project will amount to 122,300 rubles, taking into account all the minimum prices. The payback period of the tourism business is from 6 months to one year, based on seasonality and other factors.
