A travel agency keeps booking through an outage or a cyber attack when it has tested, isolated backups, a written continuity plan, resilient connectivity, and systems delivered over hosted desktops so staff can work from anywhere. The agencies that recover in hours rather than days are the ones that planned for it beforehand, and for most this resilience is part of managed IT at about £45 to £100 per user per month.
Travel runs 24/7 and moves money, so even a short outage can mean missed bookings, stranded travellers and lost revenue, while a serious incident brings data-breach reporting duties too. The aim is simple: make sure that when something goes wrong, the desk can keep going. Here is what that takes.
Tested, isolated backups
Backups are the foundation, but only if they are done properly: encrypted copies an attacker cannot reach and encrypt along with your live data, covering your hosted desktops, booking and back-office systems and Microsoft 365. Just as important, they must be test-restored on a schedule so you know recovery works and how long it takes, rather than discovering a gap on the worst possible day.
A written continuity plan
When systems go down, people should not be improvising across time zones. A short, written plan sets out who does what, how the team keeps booking in the meantime, who to notify, and how travellers and suppliers are kept informed. Even a simple plan turns panic into process, and it is the kind of documentation clients and insurers increasingly expect.
Hosted desktops and resilient connectivity
Because the booking systems run on hosted desktops, a problem at one office does not have to stop the work, staff elsewhere or at home can carry on. Resilient internet at each office, ideally with automatic failover, keeps people connected, which matters when a booking on the other side of the world cannot wait for a line to come back.
A recovery time you can trust
Continuity is really about how quickly you can be back to normal. A good setup gives you a clear, agreed and tested recovery time for your core systems, so you can take on round-the-clock work knowing that even a serious failure means hours of disruption, not days, and that no traveller is left stranded because the desk went dark.
The ransomware angle
Ransomware is now a leading cause of serious downtime, and attackers often steal data before encrypting it. That makes prevention, MFA, endpoint protection, allowlisting and email security, and tested isolated backups two halves of the same plan. Together they mean an attack becomes a clean restore rather than a crisis, and you are never forced to consider paying to keep booking.
What to ask a provider
A specialist for travel agencies should be able to answer:
- How often do you test-restore our backups, and what is our recovery time?
- Are backups isolated so ransomware cannot reach them?
- Could the desk keep booking if an office or its connection went down?
- Do we have a written continuity plan, and is it kept current?
- Is this included in a clear, per-user price?
A real example
We support a travel agency whose hosted desktops, isolated backups and tested recovery span a UK head office and several overseas locations. That foundation is exactly what makes a fast, clean recovery possible, so a problem at one site becomes an inconvenience handled quietly rather than a global outage that stops the desk.
What good IT means for a travel agency
For a travel agency, good IT is mostly invisible. Consultants sign in securely from any office or country and their booking systems are simply there and fast; payments reach the right accounts because the security and the process make fraud hard; and when something does go wrong it is caught early and fixed by people who understand travel systems. The desk keeps moving travellers around the clock, and the technology stops being something anyone has to think about.
That reliability is not luck; it is the result of a setup that is designed, secured and maintained rather than left to grow on its own. For a business that runs 24/7, handles money and depends on a handful of specialist systems, paying a predictable amount per user for that peace of mind works out far cheaper than the cost of downtime, a successful fraud, or a breach of client and crew data.
Why travel agencies choose First Stop IT
First Stop IT has supported businesses since 2002, including travel agencies and travel management companies, and we understand the systems a travel desk runs on: Amadeus, Navitas, FareXpert and TRAMS, delivered securely over hosted desktops, alongside Microsoft 365. We support travel businesses based in Essex, Hertfordshire and London with teams working worldwide. Our credentials include:
- Cyber Essentials Certified
- IASME Cyber Assurance (Gold)
- NCSC Assured Service Provider (Cyber Advisor for Cyber Essentials)
- Microsoft Partner
- Crown Commercial Service Supplier (G-Cloud)
- Quality Principles Certified
We look after more than 2,000 endpoints across 50 companies, we have been named a Top 50 UK MSP for three years running, and we support organisations with 10 to 100 employees across Essex, Hertfordshire and London, including teams working internationally.
Book a free IT and cyber security review
Want this handled properly for your travel desk? Book a free IT and cyber security review with First Stop IT.