San Juan Capistrano travel agent is tripping the life fantastic

“Go ahead and ask,” Ann Ronan said with a smile.

It had become an all-too-familiar occurrence for the San Juan Capistrano resident and chairwoman of the Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors. Whenever she tells anyone what she does for a living, they respond with something like: Travel agents are still around?

Ronan, who owns San Juan Capistrano Travel, doesn’t dispute that the industry has gone through changes – the rise of the Internet and websites like Expedia.com and Kayak.com have certainly made it easier to plan simple vacations – but it’s that same phenomenon that keeps her business afloat.

“There’s been a renaissance,” Ronan said. “People are feeling overwhelmed with their options and they want advice to make good decisions.”

The industry has seen a shift from employer agencies to independent agencies. From 1997 to 2013, the number of retail travel agencies with employees decreased by 59 percent, while the number of full-time agents dropped by 52 percent, according to data provided by the American Society of Travel Agents.

However, from 2003 to 2014, the number of independent agents (mostly home-based like Ronan), rose by 434 percent – an increase driven by increasing sales and consumer demand for personalized service, particularly among millennials.

Industry sales are improving. Eighty-four percent of ASTA members in the first three quarters of 2014 reported higher revenues than the year prior, ASTA President and CEO Zane Kerby said.

“I think the reason is that there is so much information available now to people on the Internet that you need a professional guide to make sense of it all,” Kerby said. “Consumers finally get it: The Internet is not the only source for the best deals.”

The industry’s reliance on revenue from airlines has decreased, so Ronan said she makes her money primarily from cruises and travel packages, connecting people’s unique desires to companies’ unique products.

“I can help match a person to what they’re looking for,” Ronan said. “I have software that can pull up seven options. Kayak is great, but you have to know the ins and outs.”

Beyond navigating a sea of Internet options, Ronan’s real value comes from her personal touch: someone people can trust, can relate to and who recognizes the intricacies of family travel.

Ronan can inspire the reluctant traveler with pictures of her vacations to faraway lands, giving them courage to confront their fears. She can point people to tourist-friendly parts of a country and steer them from the more dangerous spots.

She can help a family decide on which cruise to take, enable a starry-eyed groom with a $3,500 honeymoon budget maximize his money and plan a perfect vacation or fulfill a matriarch’s dreams of a multigenerational vacation without making her the point of contact.

Ronan fields many questions from family members, accommodating both routine requests and more sensitive ones like someone not wanting to be on the same deck as a sibling.

Like many entrepreneurs, Ronan’s work history has been a multitack course. She’s been a secretary, a grant proposal writer, a teacher, and even a builder of G.I. Joe jeeps in a toy factory in Rhode Island where she grew up.