The Travel Agents Rethinking the Brick and Mortar Retail Experience


Skift Take

There are vastly fewer retail travel outlets now than two decades ago, but a few creative agents are rethinking how to buy and sell travel in the real world.
The Skift New Luxury Newsletter is our weekly newsletter focused on the business of selling luxury travel, the people and companies creating and selling experiences, emerging trends, and the changing consumer habits around the sector. In addition to providing this weekly digest with stories that are relevant to the sector, Skift is expanding its coverage of the sector with stories like you find below. Just when it seemed the brick and mortar travel agency was out of style, old school is making a comeback. It seems that in this day and age of information saturation, growing numbers of people (especially among the millennial set) are craving expert curation and advice as they make their high-end, experiential travel plans. As the agency world experiences a renaissance of sorts, some innovative players are upping their game by reconceptualizing notions of what a travel storefront should look like. Notes David Kolner, senior vice president of global member partnerships for Virtuoso, "We have to make going to the agency an experience in and of itself by changing the physical space to meet clients where they are." That's not always so easy to do, according to Keith Waldon, owner of Departure Lounge in Austin, Texas. "The agency business tends to be react