Business Email for a Travel Agency: Bookings, Emergencies and Payment Fraud

A travel agency asks clients to pay thousands in advance for something they cannot see yet. Every email you send is part of the case for trusting you with that money, and every email you receive could be the one from a traveller stuck at an airport at 2 am. The address map below separates the sales side from the emergency side, and builds in the one habit that stops the fraud that targets agencies specifically: changed bank details.

Quick answer

Create bookings@, support@, groups@ and hello@ on your own domain, plus name@ for each consultant. Make support@ a group whose members are whoever is on call this week, so a traveller's emergency reaches a person. Send every invoice from bookings@ with a fixed line of text saying your bank details never change by email. All of it is free on OquMail.

The addresses to create

• bookings@youragency.com for quotes, confirmations, itineraries and payments. A group with the consultants and the owner; every client thread starts and stays here.
• support@youragency.com for travellers who are already away: delays, missed connections, hotel problems. A group with the on-call consultant and the owner, and change the members when the rota changes.
• groups@youragency.com for school trips, weddings abroad, corporate travel and tours. A group with the owner and whoever handles group quotes; these are the biggest bookings and the slowest to close.
• hello@youragency.com as the public address on the website and the social profiles. A group with the owner and the front desk.
• name@youragency.com for each consultant. Clients book with a person; the signature should carry that person's name and the agency's licence or bonding number.

Payment fraud, and the line that stops it

Agencies are a favourite target for invoice fraud because clients expect to pay large sums by bank transfer to a company they have only emailed. The attack is simple: a criminal who has read either side's inbox sends "our bank details have changed" from a lookalike address. The defence is a fixed sentence on every invoice and every payment email: "Our bank details never change by email. If you receive an email saying they have, call us on the number on our website before paying." Put it in the bookings@ signature so it cannot be forgotten. Apply the same rule to your own suppliers: a hotel or operator emailing new details gets a phone call first. Two-factor authentication on every mailbox closes the other half of the attack; the 2FA guide explains the setup.

The emails you send every week

• Quote, from bookings@: the itinerary in the body in plain text, the price, what is and is not included, the deposit, the balance date and the cancellation terms. Attach the PDF, but assume it is read on a phone.
• Confirmation and travel documents, from bookings@, with the booking reference in the subject line so the client can find it at the check-in desk.
• Balance reminder, from bookings@, three weeks before the balance date. The invoice reminder templates adapt well.
• Pre-departure email, from the consultant's name@, a week before: documents, check-in times, the support@ address and the emergency phone number, and the one thing the client always forgets.
• Welcome home, from the consultant, two days after return. It is where reviews and the next booking come from.

Set it up in an afternoon

1. Add your domain in OquMail and paste the MX, SPF and DKIM records at your registrar. The DNS checklist has the exact values.
2. Create bookings@ and each consultant's name@ first, then a name@ mailbox for each person who writes to clients.
3. Create the shared addresses as groups and add the right people as members. Each member gets a copy in their own mailbox, so nothing waits on one person.
4. Set a signature on every mailbox in webmail: name, role, phone, and any licence or registration number your field requires.
5. Put the new addresses on the website, the booking or contact page, the social profiles and the email signatures, then stop giving out the personal ones.
6. Turn on two-factor authentication for every mailbox, not just the owner's. Client data is what makes your inbox worth stealing.

Mistakes specific to the trade

• Consultants booking from personal addresses. The client follows the consultant to the next agency, and the agency cannot find the booking when the client calls.
• support@ read by one person. The one person is asleep when the traveller needs them.
• Keeping passport scans in email forever. Travel documents are sensitive personal data; collect them, use them for the booking, then delete them from the thread. The retention guide covers the rest.
• A single long thread per client with quotes, payments and documents mixed together. Start a fresh subject line for each booking and keep the reference in it.

Common questions

Can I use the booking system instead of email?

Use both. The booking system is the record of the booking; email is the record of what was said. Set the system's reply-to address to bookings@ so a client who replies to an automated confirmation reaches a consultant.

Do I need a different address per destination or brand?

Not an address, a domain, and only if you trade under two names. The free plan supports three domains, so a cruise brand and a safari brand can each have their own bookings@ in one workspace.

How do I send the pre-departure email to a group of forty?

One email per traveller, each with their own name and their own documents. For a group of forty that is an hour of work or a short script against the API, and it means no traveller receives someone else's passport details.