What’s the largest category of travel for businesses like Performance Media Group, parent company to this magazine?

It’s actually hotels and resorts. Did you guess that would be the answer?

The reason is simple. There are tens of thousands of individual hotels and resorts around the world, all of which are interested in earning your business. They are constantly reinventing their properties and upgrading their product to stay ahead of a demanding consumer who also happens to be your client.

With the many choices offered by different properties and the many price points that are in the market today, it’s not surprising that more and more consumers are turning to you for recommendations. Those recommendations lead to influence, as reported by YPartnership (“YPartnership/Harrison Group 2010 Portrait of American TravelersSM”) and by other third-party research firms who are hearing about this trend first hand from travel agents’ customers.

One of the key things you need to be able to do, in order to succeed in this business, is to be able to match the right client with the right property. If you’re going to achieve long-term success, you have to know more than your customer, who will do research online.