Disney Travel Agent Commissions - How Much Can You Make?
How much commission do Disney travel agents really make? If you've been thinking about becoming a Disney travel agent and have a passion for all things Disney, if you already share all of your tips and advice with family and friends, this might be a sign that you are ready to become a Disney travel agent.
Is it worth your investment in time and money of starting as a Disney travel agent?
The Disney travel agent commission structure is pretty straightforward. For most vacations, especially for new travel agents, your commission starts out at around 10%. That means if you book a $6,000 trip, you’ll make $600 after that person travels. This does not include Disney cruises - They are a little different depending on the volume of your sales. You can make higher commissions, up to 15 to 16% commissions for Disney Cruises, so it might be something you want to keep in mind!
For most Disney vacations, especially if you are a new travel agent, you are going to start out at 10%. That means if you book a $5,000 vacation, if you're an independent contractor travel agent with Disney, you're going to make $500 once the person travels. That's the other thing that you want to remember as you're starting as a Disney travel agent, is it takes a little ramp up time because if you're selling vacations right now, people may be traveling a month from now or six months from now.As with all commissions as a travel agent, your pay actually comes in after travel. Now, if you're selling Disney cruises dependent on the volume of sales that you do on an annual basis, you can actually earn all the way up to 15 or 16%. So based on your volume that you're doing, you can see an increase on the cruise portion for Disney.
So keep that in mind as you're growing as a Disney travel agent. Now, a big note to consider is as you are growing, as you are booking dependent on how you are set up, you may have to share a portion of that commission with your host agency.
If you do that, you're going to earn likely 70 to 90% of your commissions, based on your agreement with your host agency. What would you do with an extra $2,000 a month? Which can be very doable quickly. That's basically three or four vacations traveling every month. And then you earning the commission from it.
But if you're doing a little bit of online marketing, maybe through social media, and getting clients to book through you as a Disney travel agent, that's how you can get that five trips a month and ten trips a month and then 20 trips a month. And that's how it can kind of grow over time.
As your client's kids get older, they're going to want to start to add on Universal vacations. Kids and families can graduate from Disney vacations, and want more of a variety, and this is where being a Universal travel agent can help! You can always add this with being a Disney travel agent.
But every time we go now, we have to do a universal add on. Your clients Are going to have that same request over time. And if you know how to introduce it properly into your sales process, you may be able to do those add ons as you go. Another thing is concierge fees doing things like fast passes and dining.
Also, Disney does an amazing job of giving Disney travel agents a great discount if you go through their training program once you graduate - You will get access to discounts. Should you get into this just for the discounts? There's a lot of people that do that. So that is an option for you if that's something that you're thinking about. They also give you discounts on your tickets so you can get half off a pass or you can just get a one day free ticket for Disney as well to the park of your choosing.
So Disney does a great job. They also do educational events where you can register and they will drive you around to the different properties. So lots of cool perks.
Before being a Disney travel agent, there are some things you need to know how to do well to do the best job that you can do as a travel agent. One is, do you know how to be an actual travel agent? Disney is not going to teach you all the ins and outs of being a travel agent. We provide all travel agent training, covering nearly all niches.
You need to know how to attract ideal clients. Doing the friends and family is great, but how do I get clients every single month that are booking? So you can get that five trips and that ten trips and that 15 trips right. How are you going to get those clients if you if you don't know how to market and if you don't know how to operate in the online space?
So learning how to market is something you really have to commit to and learning how to operate a business in the online space. That is really what you were doing as a travel agent. In today's environment, it's your responsibility to learn those. Doesn't matter if you work for an agency or you work for yourself.You are even if you work for an agency, how are the models work in the travel industry is they set you up as an I-9 contractor? That means you're in a contract position with them. Nine times out of ten. There's a few that do employees, but they're very, very rare. So when you're set up as a contractor, you're expected to go find your own clients to build your business under their umbrella business.
Do yourself a favor of setting yourself up the right way from the beginning. Whether you are a brand new agent or you've been a Disney agent for ten years, but maybe your sales aren't where they want to be, we help both new and experienced agents grow as travel agents.I hope this was valuable information. I hope you get to find out. You're happy to find out exactly what Disney travel agents make, if that's a fit for you and can help you really make some decisions on if you want to move forward on this.
