We are surrounded by information, so much information, in fact, that there is a term for it: information overload. Where we once had to rely on a very small pool of reliable sources, there are now so many that it can make us feel like we’re able to become experts about anything, be it computer programming or travel. This is true, but it’s also true that it takes a long time to learn enough to know what you don’t know. When it comes to travel, knowledge is power and travel agents know.
One of the pitfalls of information overload is that when a person is presented with too much information, like all that information available on the internet about your preferred destination, you can’t process all of it. As the excess information builds up, our ability to make good decisions actually decreases. Ever been confronted with a rack of choices at the supermarket and just froze, stared at all the possibilities and finally just grabbed the cheapest option so you could move on? That’s information overload at work and the same thing can happen when setting up your travel arrangements.
Say you go to one of the many websites that promises the best airfares or cruise fares or hotel room prices and enter your information. Then you get confronted with a list of options. You scroll down and find out that there are an additional ten pages of choices. Information overload. If you do what most people do, you sort the list by price and pick one of the choices right near the top. Maybe because it leaves at a time you like, or on a date you like or just because the price looks right.
Now think about your job. How often are you faced with a mass of information or set of problems and there is no information overload? Your knowledge lets you filter the relevant and irrelevant information to get what you need from that mass of information or set of problems, and your mind ignores the rest.
When it comes to things like booking travel arrangements, that’s what a travel agent does. They’ve developed the expertise, over time, to be able to filter the good information from the bad and the good deals from the bad. They take the power of all that knowledge and experience and apply it to your specific situation, pulling out the options that actually serve your ends, rather than picking the ones that cost the least or leave at the right time or have a view.
Information overload when it comes to travel is especially precarious because we leave behind our safety net when we go away. That web of relationships we rely on to keep on course is now 500 or 1000 or 3000 miles away. Making a travel decision based on escaping information overload can land you in a terrible hotel, after a horrible flight, and in the wrong part of town. If you want to let someone who sorts travel information professionally take a crack at handling your travel arrangement, the folks at 1720 S Bellaire St. Suite 308, Denver, CO 80222 would be happy to help.