Are you an avid traveler, who already helps friends and family members plan and book their vacations? Then you should know about Fora, a “travel agency in a box.”
What is Fora?
Fora is a travel website that encourages professional and amateur travel experts to sign up to become part-time travel advisors. This gives you the ability to earn commissions on every trip you book.
How it works
If you choose to apply to be a travel agent here, you’ll fill out a short questionnaire about your favorite hotels and destinations, as well as how many times you’ve helped others plan trips. The site will then “invite” you to join via email.
But to join, you’ll need to pay a “membership” fee of $299 for a year, or $99 for three months. When you book travel, 30% of the commissions you earn go to the platform, as well.
Fora review:
SideHusl.com’s editors are always skeptical of side gig opportunities that require you to pay upfront. But, for anyone contemplating a career — or active side hustle — in the travel industry, Fora is worth a look.
For this fairly low cost, this site offers training, sales and marketing tools, as well as software that makes it easy to send travel itineraries to your prospective clients. Most importantly, you get an “IATA number” that allows you to earn commissions on bookings of hotels, cruises, tours and excursions.
Commissions
Commission rates vary widely from 0% on most airline tickets to 25% on some luxury hotels and trips. Most commonly, they range from 10% to 16%, however.
Most hotels, cruises, safaris and tour packages build a commission structure into the cost of the product. So, clients don’t pay more when they book with an agent. And, in fact, you can use this number to earn commissions on your own travel, effectively reducing the cost of your trips.
Personal use
Notably, Fora doesn’t want advisors to solely use the site to book their own travel. If you book only your own travel, Fora will review your account and may eventually boot you from the platform. The site says it erodes confidence in Fora advisors when too many of them are simply reducing the cost of their own trips. However, if you book half your own trips and half trips for others — particularly in your early years on the platform, Fora considers that a pretty normal progression.
Fora Math
And, if you have a big personal trip on the horizon, it wouldn’t be difficult to break even on just that one trip.
Let’s say, for instance, that you wanted to do a luxury cruise of Viet Nam and Cambodia with Avalon Waterways. This cruise company’s 13-day river boat journey costs a minimum of $5,324 per person. So, you and your spouse would be paying a total of $10,648. Avalon’s commission rates are staggered paying up to 17% for high-producing agents. But since you’re new, let’s assume you earn just a 10% commission on that booking. That’s $1065. Fora will take 30% of that, leaving you with a net commission of $745.
You paid $299 for the year, so you’re up $446 — the $745 net commission minus the $299 membership fee.
Any additional travel you book in the same year is pure gravy.
Benefits for volume
If it turns out that your travel arranging business really takes off, you can also be in line from industry-only perks like “fam trips,” where you get a highly discounted or free access to tours and cruises. These fam trips are designed specifically to help high-volume agents understand the benefits of traveling with different tour companies, so they feel more comfortable booking their clients on these often expensive trips.
Finding clients
Of course, this side gig is only going to work well for people who are legitimately passionate about travel and who can use that passion to find customers. Customers will expect you to know the best travel companies operating in whatever area they’re traveling, as well as their needs for local currency, travel insurance, power converters and the like.
Fora provides marketing materials to help you find clients. But the people who will do best here likely already have a network of friends and family that rely on them for travel advice. Word-of-mouth advertising is a powerful force.
Specializing
Some advisors also suggest that you specialize. You can either do that by concentrating on a particular portion of the world — Asia, for instance. Or you can do that by capitalizing on groups you’re already part of. For instance, if you’re involved in religious groups, you could organize religious tours, seeing the Holy Land or the once-a-decade passion play in Oberammergau.
If you are involved in cooking groups, you could specialize in gastronomic adventures in the U.S. or overseas. The idea here is to deepen your expertise to a point where people come to you for this type of trip because they know you’ll make it special.
Pay
Fora tracks all the commissions you earn and collects them on your behalf. Travel advisors receive 70% of the commissions they earn. The other 30% go to Fora.
However, know that commissions payments are often slow. Commissions are typically paid after the trip is complete and after Fora has received the commission from the supplier. This can take 30 to 90 days, depending on the vendor.
Once Fora has received the commissions, you’ll get paid via direct deposit.
Recommendations
For the right person, Fora could provide a lucrative side gig as well as a fun activity. You can sign up with Fora here. If you’re someone who would like to guide trips, also consider Viator and ToursByLocals.
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