A travel agency makes reservations and bookings for travel services such as flights, hotels, tours, yacht cruises, guides and rental cars. It may also arrange so-called "F.I.T" tours—private one-of-a-kind itineraries planned especially for you. A travel agency may also operate a limited number of small-group guided tours.
Do you need to use a travel agency for your travel arrangements in Turkey? Not necessarily, but it may be wise to do so. Here's why:
In our consultations with travelers, we frequently talk to folks who like to make all their own travel arrangements. They're good at it, and with the Internet, it's easier than ever.
But inevitably, after making a few reservations, some travelers discover that getting responses from hotels and airlines, checking competing rates, and fitting all the parts of a trip together efficiently is much more work and confusion than they had anticipated.
So they finally contact a Turkish travel agency for help, but this puts the travel agent in a spot: unsure of exactly what arrangements have already been made, and how dependable these arrangements are, the agent is unable to visualize the trip as a whole, and to make everything fit together and work right.
If your trip is a simple one, and you have plenty of time both for planning before your trip and on the road in Turkey, and if your schedule is flexible, you may not need a travel agent.
But if your time is valuable, and you want to see a lot in a limited time in Turkey, you should seriously consider using a travel agency for at least some of your travel arrangements.