I joined Dugan's Travel in July of 2021 with no travel agent experience under my belt. I had discovered the joy of traveling only a few years before, and I was looking for a way to travel more and supplement my upcoming retirement income. I decided to give it a year's trial to see if I liked it and could make any money doing it.
Dugan's agency was more than willing to take on a newbie and provided a multitude of training opportunities. If I've had questions on procedures or suppliers or just needed suggestions for great travel ideas for clients, I've always gotten feedback from the leadership team or from other agents in the Dugan's family via the Facebook page. I've never been left hanging on my own.
I live in a small Midwestern town so I don't have a vast population to pull from for travel
clients, but with the variety of training I've taken advantage of, I have been in the top 25 selling agents in 2022. I so enjoy the work I'm doing, now as a full-time agent since my recent retirement. I'm so thankful I took a chance to reach out to Dugan's Travel to ask how I could become a travel agent with their organization. I would encourage anyone looking for a host agency that truly cares you as an individual to contact them, as well.
This was my first host agency. The intro training was Ok, I was a complete newbie at the time. So I needed a ton more training.First the bad. They give you the access you need for just about everything but they had nothing to offer in terms of back office or technology. They use yahoo groups and commision claims was an excel spreadsheet. The owner often barked about the monthy fees and would state agents would be terminated if it wasn't paid on time. This was said so much it became unpleasant. The yahoo agent group was patroled so much that if you forgot to sign your name to the post you got a nasty email and your posting was rejected. I always paid when I had to (they waive the fee if you sell $3000.00 in a month) and felt that was fair. I left for those reasons. The good. They are a very honest host agency, they are not going to take your money and leave you. I found the owner to be very helpful when needed and her support system always handled problems fast. She listens and responds to her agents. They have top level commissions and and will get you access to any supplier you may need. I really feel if they added some tech and offer some tech, dropped the yahoo thing and conversed with difficult agents more privately they would be a top notch outfit. I haven't been with them for some time, 4 years or so, so much of this may have changed. This was just my experince. Would I join them again? I would if those issues where resolved.
There have been many changes to Dugan's Travels host agency program.
Some top things are:
Private agency website with message forums. We no longer use Yahoo Groups.
Clientease is our commission program. No longer using Excel.
Clamshell Studios offers special websites for our agents. https://www.clamshellstudiosllc.com/affiliates/dugans/
We have a full management team in place.
Our sales have been up over 35% the last 2 years in a row. We have close relationships with suppliers and are a member of Vacation.com Inner Circle.
Many things changed once we began to grow so much and changes needed to be made. Keep in mind when I started the host agency set up, I was just trying to help other moms work at home as travel agents. We grew so much that there were some growing pains.. but it is great now!
Give us another look if you haven't recently.