ASTA Announces Safe Traveler as New Vendor

ASTA Marketing Services, Inc. (AMSI), the American Society of Travel Agents' for-profit subsidiary, has added Safe Traveler as a new vendor. Agents can earn up to a 15 percent commission from sales, AMSI says. Safe Traveler allows ASTA members to profitably extend their customer service by offering door-to-door travel monitoring. Plus, this service includes detailed destination-specific information, covering everything from a country’s history and culture to up-to-the-minute alerts on weather, security and political climate.

“Thanks to our relationship with Safe Traveler, ASTA members now have a profitable way to meet the expectations of increasingly sophisticated, yet cost-conscious travelers,” said Bob Kern, president PNR Travel, Los Angeles, and AMSI president. “It’s just another way in which travel agents can provide a value-added service and set themselves apart from the competition.”

For $25, travel agents can offer the Travel Monitoring Service, which provides e-mail or text alerts to their client while on the road. The Travel Monitoring Service uses a state-of-the-art monitoring center and proprietary technology to monitor clients’ trips from booking through return. If anything is identified that might impact the trip, the traveler is notified immediately—anywhere—with advice to minimize the potential disruption.

ASTA travel agents can also offer downloadable Trip Briefs for over 200 countries. For just $7.50, these real-time publications provide travelers with an in-depth look at current country conditions as well as additional information written by destination specialists to make travel planning easier.

“The addition of travel monitoring capabilities means that agents can easily provide the level of on-demand customer support today's more sophisticated traveler demands,” said
Chris Simons, chief security officer of Safe Traveler.

Visit www.asta.org/businessservices.