Travel consolidators are high-volume ticket brokers. They purchase large scale tickets and sell them to customers for a lower price than the published fares. A travel consolidator buys a large amount of tickets directly from the carriers or the airline companies.
This way they get discounted prices because of the volume they purchased. They negotiate with these carriers so they get big discounts. Some travel consolidators even have their own contracts with the airline companies. However, they only negotiate for a specific region. Somewhere they know that is a popular destination, this way they could sell their tickets faster.
Some consolidators are even owned by the carriers themselves. Big airline companies normally have several travel consolidators under their wing. These are done because there may be instances that a number of seats are not sold for a specific flight. What the carriers and the consolidators do is to sell these empty seats at a lower fare. Consolidators buy the extra tickets at a lower price and sell them to travelers on a lower fare than the published rates. It is not publicly known how consolidating works for travel.
Consolidators get their tickets in a much lower price than an ordinary person because of the volume of tickets they bought. This way they could resell the tickets at a much lower price to travelers. But they do make profits. Yes they sell tickets at a lower rate but that doesn't mean that they are sacrificing their profit. Everything is all about money.
And they well know how to make money. They also sell the tickets with the same price as the published fares. This way they earn a bigger profit. They have their own market. Some consolidators sell their tickets to travel agents alone and some sell them both to the travel agent and the public. Some also sell their tickets online.
Travel consolidators even come with different classifications. There may be those who only do wholesale, meaning they resell their tickets in volume. Other travel consolidators might be those specializing on the destinations.
This means that they only buy tickets on specific regions. However there are also those that specialize on multi-stops or those tickets on fights that have several stops. Like any other jobs travel consolidators have their own pluses and minuses. They have the privilege of buying tickets below the published fares and have the liberty of buying them until the departure date of the said flight. However, they also have their own setbacks. The ticket that they could buy only goes on a specific route which narrows their market.
Another thing is they have to negotiate well because it means profit! .
By: Stanley Emerson
