# Travel agency software in the United States

> Answer every enquiry, quote cruises and the land around them day by day, and send itineraries and vouchers in dollars under your own brand, whether you sell alone, through a host agency or as a tour operator selling to other agencies.

*Source: https://itravel.cloud/b2b-travel-software/united-states*

## United States at a glance

- **Wallet currency:** USD
- **Hub:** California, Florida and New York
- **Portal languages:** English
- **Suggested template:** Cruise for cruise and rail specialists; Inbound for receptive operators.

## How the trade works

Much of the American trade is one person at a desk. The Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics counted 76,090 travel arrangement and reservation businesses with no paid employees in 2022, most of them sole proprietorships. Some states regulate the seller too: California and Florida require sellers of travel to register and to show the registration number in their advertising, and Washington lets an independent contractor sell without a registration of its own when it works under a registered seller's name and registration and the money is collected in that seller's name.

## What operators here are loading

Cruise cabins and land packages bought from suppliers, honeymoons and family trips built day by day, and, for receptive operators, hotels, tours and transfers sold on to agencies abroad.

## Worth knowing

Papers print on US Letter rather than A4 for an account based in the United States, and every date prints in words, because 03/04 is the fourth of March to your client and the third of April to a hotel in Europe.

## An enquiry desk for a one-person business

When the advisor is also the marketing department, enquiries arrive from everywhere at once. Give your website form an address of its own, connect your Facebook, Instagram and Google Ads lead forms with your own accounts, and link your own WhatsApp Business number. Each enquiry opens a deal with a reference you can read out on the phone, and the answers to a Google form's own questions, such as where they want to go, are written into its brief.

Priority comes from the source, how soon they travel, the party's size and the value, and is scored again every night. A deal nobody has answered says how long it has waited, “3 days with no reply”, and each morning one email lists what is late or due today.

## Cruise quotes priced by the berth

Cruise lines sell by sailing, cabin and berth rather than by the night, and the CRM's rate cards follow that shape.

- **Sailings and cabins.** Each sailing carries its date and nights; each cabin category carries fares for the twin, single, third and fourth berth, a child and an infant.
- **What every guest pays on top.** Port charges and taxes per person, and gratuities for everyone except an infant, are added to the fare, not remembered at the end.
- **The fewest cabins.** The builder sleeps the party in the fewest cabins that hold it and puts the line on the day the ship sails.
- **The land either side.** Hotels by room type, meal plan and occupancy, and private transfers priced by the cheapest set of vehicles that seats the party, on the same day-by-day quotation.
- **Checks before it goes.** More than forty, from a night with no bed to a cabin of children with no adult; none stops you sending.

## Accepted on a link, never edited behind the client

Send the quotation by email, as a link or as a WhatsApp message. The client picks an option, ticks any optional extras and types their name to accept it. Once a quotation has been sent it never changes in place: a change becomes a new version under the same reference, the earlier one stays readable, and your cost and margin appear on neither.

If a client goes quiet, one reminder follows a set number of days after the email, in the language the quotation was printed in, unless you untick it for that send.

## Papers under the name you trade as

Vouchers works on its own: enter the trip a service at a time and every voucher and itinerary is issued from those entries. If you also run the CRM, a won deal becomes that trip in one press.

- **Your details on every paper.** Logo, colour, contacts, a 24/7 line and the licence or registration number you hold print on every voucher and itinerary.
- **One voucher, three copies.** The traveller's; the supplier's, which shows no price and leaves out the guest's email and phone; and a trade copy for a partner agency.
- **Your numbering kept.** A prefix for each document type, and a series that carries on from the number your old system reached.
- **The trip on the traveller's phone.** One link with your 24/7 line first and every service at its local time, still readable without signal once opened.

## For tour operators selling to the trade

If other agencies sell your programmes, that side of the business runs on the B2B portal. Load your contracted hotels, tours and transfers at your net rates, set the markup each price tier sees, and give every partner agency an account that is prepaid or on a credit limit, as you decide. A wholesaler overseas can be priced and billed in its own currency, converted once and fixed on each booking, while your ledger stays in dollars.
