Yes, finally, launch day! I had originally hoped to launch in mid-September, but delays with Disney and others caused a big delay. In reality, I just needed to get open well in advance of January 1, so October 24 works well! January is the busiest month for travel agents. January is when the holidays are over, it is cold outside, and people finally have time to think about their travel plans for the year. We often get as many requests in January and February as the rest of the year combined. So, opening now will get me in good position for January.

I have completed just about everything on my Travel Startup Tasks lists, except for signing up for our CRM, which I will do when we have our first booking. No need to pay for it when we aren’t using it. I also need to finalize some of the training documents, but I will finish those when necessary. They are 95% done, they just need a little polishing. Also, I am TECHNICALLY waiting on final approval from Disney, but that should come any day now.

In addition, I wrote one new blog post today, How to Become a Disney Travel Agent.

Time

As part of this process, I wanted to make sure I was clear on the time and monetary requirements. To this point, I have been working on launching the new agency for about 8 weeks. Some weeks have been more time-consuming than others, but overall, I have spent about 10 hours a week working to get ready for today. There really is a lot of waiting involved, you don’t control your own timeline.

Expenses

For expenses, I have spent the following money getting ready for launch. Please note that I already owned this domain, so there was no registration expense for my domain. That cost is usually about $10. I use Cloudflare as my registry, they are the cheapest and have been great to work with. Also, I currently have several small servers running all of my other sites, so it was easy to throw this site and Tiki Room Travel onto one of the servers, so there wasn’t any additional cost for me. There are plenty of hosts out there that charge a few dollars per month. I am a huge fan of Cloudways, they host all of my really important sites, and at some point, TRT will move over there. Their least expensive plan is $14 per month, but when I need to know my site will be up always, it is worth every penny.

$47 – Business Cards. I went ahead and designed a business card template and spent the money to get them printed, so I would know what they look like. I only ordered 500 cards. Normally I would order 2,500, and the cost would be closer to $70.

$54 – Register new LLC. I registered a new LLC with a new EIN in my home state. I am fortunate that my state is pretty cheap for LLC registration, I know many are $200+.

$247 – Register a new home office with IATA. This is a one time fee to set up my company with IATA. I will also need to pay an annual fee of $99. I had talked about CLIA being an option. CLIA Is $399 to register and has a $399 annual fee. You can see why going with IATA is cheaper in the long run.

$7 per month – Cost for Google Workspace. The basic plan covers everything I need, and well worth every penny.

I did all of my logo and website design myself. For many, this will be an expense, but I am pretty component with design. I use WordPress for my websites, and I was able to rough up a site in less than an hour, and polish it up in another hour.

Also, I use as many free things as I can. WordPress, for example, as well as the WordPress theme I use, are free. I also take full advantage of everything included in Google Workspace. I am also currently running the business out of my home office. There may come a time that I need an office away from my home, but for now, no need.

Upcoming Expenses

I have some expenses I foresee coming in the near future. When I register for our CRM, that will start a monthly cost for me of around $10, depending on which CRM I choose.

Since I am launching today, I will start advertising my posts on Facebook (and maybe Twitter/X). My plan is to post one new blog post a week for the rest of the year, and spend between $35 – $50 on each post. That should amount to about $400, give or take. In January, I will probably spend $300 – $500 that month alone. I have a $1,500 budget to cover my advertising for the year. If discounts come out, I will blog about those too. I tend to promote discounts more than anything else, people love to save money! I have a rough calendar made with advertising amounts, but that always gets messed up by discount and other news releases.

I will add another blog post here later this week and keep that post updated with my advertising spendings.

New Agent Expenses

My goal with TRT is to add new agents as quickly as possible. There are cost associated with adding agents, which should be covered by their monthly fee. TRT will pay for an email address for the agent and business cards, but the agent will be responsible for paying for the CRM. Overall, I make a few dollars per month per agent, which is probably less than minimum wage for my time spent. I really won’t make any money from agents until they start booking trips.