Is Being a Travel Agent Still Worth It in 2025? Here’s What to Know
✨ Key Points
Digital Flexibility: Modern travel agents no longer need physical offices—everything from consultations to bookings can be managed online.
AI Competition: Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT now compete with travel agents, making personalization and trust key advantages for humans.
Niche Demand: The profession thrives by serving travelers with complex, multi-country itineraries who value expert, human-led planning.
In the past, becoming a travel agent was regarded as a solid profession.
It might not have had the growth potential of some other industries, but you could certainly make a reliable living that way.
You still can, but the industry has changed quite a bit in the past several decades.
What’s it like to be a travel agent in the latter half of 2025?
We’ll discuss that in detail right now by breaking down some of the pros and cons.
There’s a Certain Kind of Person Who Still Uses a Travel Agent
We’ll start with the pros of being a travel agent.
The best news is that there are still people who feel they need this service, so the industry is alive, if not exactly thriving.
Maybe someone plans to take a complex trip that spans multiple countries or territories.
They’re looking for amazing payment processing for travel industry expenses.
They also need someone who knows a great deal about the part of the world to which this would-be customer intends to travel.
That is the kind of person who is keeping the travel agent profession alive.
Such an individual might contact a travel agent because they want to set up hotels, transportation, guides when they reach their international destination, etc.
They want someone else to handle it, though.
There’s No Longer a Need for Physical Office Space
Another thing that’s nice about the travel agent industry in 2025 is that you don’t really need a physical storefront like you once did. You can handle everything digitally.
That includes Zoom calls with your potential customers and similar interactions.
This can reduce your overhead.
If you don’t need a brick-and-mortar location out of which you’re running your business, then you’re set up for nothing but profit when you interact with would-be customers.
AI is Disrupting This Industry
That being said, there are some distinct challenges facing you if you’re a travel agent these days.
Many individuals are willing to ask an open AI model like ChatGPT to act as their travel agent.
AI can find just as much information online to help the user book a trip as a human travel agent could.
You want to try to target individuals who don’t trust AI.
It is definitely true that AI can make some mistakes when it gathers information about a potential trip from internet sources, and that is part of what you have to try and count on.
Many Individuals Feel They Don’t Need a Travel Agent to Book a Trip
The other problem if you are a travel agent right now is that many individuals who are planning a trip, even if they don’t use AI for help, feel they can find everything they need just by looking online.
It might be hard to disabuse them of that notion.
As a travel agent, your key demographic in 2025 are individuals planning a relatively complicated or multifaceted trip who want to use a human for help rather than automated sources.
