Start A Specialty Travel Business - Business Ideas

Updated: September 15th, 2022
Start A Specialty Travel Business

Please note that the data provided in this article are estimates and may vary depending on various factors, and should not be considered as perfect or definitive.

A specialty travel business specializes in providing a specific type of travel experience. Examples of specialty travel businesses include adventure tours, eco-tourism, and luxury cruises.

These agencies are often called “niche” or “boutique” and have more experience and knowledge about their niche than larger companies. The first step to starting your own specialty travel business is to identify what niche you want to specialize in. It can be anything from destination-specific (e.g., Paris) to specific types of trips (e.g., cruises).

Starting a specialty travel business requires a great deal of effort, dedication, and most importantly passion.

If you're interested in how to sell specialty travel, or selling specialty travel online, you can use this page as a guide for everything you'll need to know.

Key Stats

market size
$540B
starting costs
$18K
gross margin
90%
time to build
270 days
growth
Organic social media
time investment
Side project

Startup Costs

Min Startup Costs Max Startup Costs

Employee & Freelancer Expenses

$151

$252

Website Costs

$223

$7,015

Business Formation Fees

$600

$4,700

Vehicle Expenses

$0

$10,000

Retail Business Expenses

$1,250

$6,650

Advertising & Marketing Costs

$75

$3,986

Software Expenses

$162

$2,720

Office Space Expenses

$0

$100

Specific Industry Expenses

$0

$500

Total Startup Costs

$2,461

$35,923

Successful Businesses

Business URL Rank

Lifecare

lifecare.com

83,260

ASSURANT

assurant.com

84,522

cvsspecialty

cvsspecialty.com

100,628

Emirates Specialty Hospital

eshospital.com

262,951

SECURA Insurance

secura.net

654,955

Axis Capital

axiscapital.com

755,540

Crum & Forster Insurance

cfins.com

852,612

Default

sgia.org

1,000,013

IntactSpecialty.com

intactspecialty.com

1,215,834

Specialty Travel

specialty.travel

1,270,869

Online Travel Directory

travelaxis.org

2,043,571

Pros & Cons

Pros Description

Little startup costs required

The cost to start a specialty travel business costs significantly less money than most businesses, ranging anywhere from 62 to 35,923.

Rewarding work

Starting a specialty travel business can be really rewarding work. After all, you are solving an immediate issue for your customer and you're working on something you truly care about.

High customer retention rates

Once a customer invests in your product, they've invested their time and energy to utilize your product/service which is highly valuable to them. Typically, your product or service becomes indispensable to your customer.

Pick & choose the clients you work with

Specialty Travel Businesses have the ability to choose the clients they work with. You have the freedom to work with only a few loyal clients or with hundreds of clients!

Control of workload

With starting a specialty travel business, you have the unique ability to choose how little or how much you want to work. You also have the freedom to decide which projects you want to work on, and can turn down the ones that do not interest you.

Gain exposure and experience

This career allows you to gain experience working for multiple different businesses - which will benefit your resume and also keep things interesting for you!

Cons Description

Motivation of employees

If you plan to have a sales/content team on board, finding creative ways to motivate them can be a challenge. It's important that you're able to offer great incentives and a good work environment for your employees.

Longer Sales Process

A specialty travel business can be a big time and money investment for your customer, so it's important you plan and predict a longer conversion funnel and stay in communication with potential customers.

Work can be inconsistent

As a specialty travel business, the amount of work assigned to you and schedule tends to be more inconsistent, which may make your income less stable. It's important to set boundaries and budget accordingly based on the amount of work you plan to have.

Lack of benefits

With a specialty travel business, you are typically self-employed and responsible for finding your own insurance, which can be quite costly and time-consuming.

Taxes

As a specialty travel business, you typically pay self-employment taxes which can be quite high. It's important to understand what you will be paying in taxes each year so you can determine if the work you're taking on is worth it.

No safety net

Typically, as a specialty travel business, you do not receive a consistent pay-check and instead earn money based on your transactions each month. During the slow periods, you typically take away less since the job is based on commission. It's important to budget accordingly for the slow times.