Most travellers prefer using travel agents to calling every airline themselves or figuring out how to work the flight-booking services on commercial online services, especially since using an agentcosts them no more.
The principal can limit divergences from his interest by establishing appropriate incentives for the agent and by incurring monitoring costs designed to limit the aberrant activities of the agent.
In addition in some situations it will pay the agent to expend resources (bonding costs) to guarantee that he will not take certain actions which would harm the principal or to ensure that the principal will be compensated if he does take such actions.
"The thing is that most of these places come unfinished and unfurnished, so you have to factor those costs in too, " said Brett Miller, the managing director of Rangoon-based commercial-property agent Scopio Services.