A travel agency should back up everything its desk depends on, its booking and back-office systems, files, and Microsoft 365 email and data, following the 3-2-1 principle, keeping at least one copy isolated so ransomware cannot reach it, and regularly test-restoring so recovery actually works. The goal is a known, fast recovery time, not just the comfort of having backups. For most agencies this is part of managed IT at about £45 to £100 per user per month.
Backups are the safety net under a 24/7 travel desk, but plenty of businesses discover too late that theirs were incomplete, out of date or unable to restore. Here is what good backup and recovery looks like for a travel agency.
Back up everything that matters
It is not just files. Your hosted-desktop environment, booking and back-office systems, and crucially your Microsoft 365 email, SharePoint and OneDrive, all need backing up. Many assume Microsoft fully backs up their data; it does not to the extent most expect, so a dedicated Microsoft 365 backup is an important and often missing piece.
Follow the 3-2-1 principle
A dependable approach keeps at least three copies of your data, on two types of media, with one off-site. That way a single failure, a hardware fault, a mistake, an attack, never takes out every copy at once. It is a simple rule that quietly prevents most data-loss disasters.
Keep a copy ransomware cannot reach
Modern ransomware deliberately seeks out and encrypts backups, so at least one copy must be isolated or immutable, beyond the attacker’s reach. This is what lets you recover and refuse a ransom, and it is the single most important feature of a backup designed for today’s threats.
Test restores, not just backups
A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a plan. Regular test restores prove the data is really there and usable, and show how long recovery takes, so there are no nasty surprises during a real incident. Proven recovery is the whole point of backing up.
Know your recovery time
For a desk that runs around the clock, how quickly you can be working again matters as much as having the data. Agreeing target recovery times, and building the backup and continuity setup to meet them, means a serious problem becomes a measured recovery rather than an open-ended outage that costs bookings.
What to ask a provider
A specialist for travel agencies should be able to answer:
- Have you supported travel agencies, hosted desktops and systems like Amadeus, Navitas, FareXpert or TRAMS before?
- How do you give office, remote and overseas staff secure, reliable access in any time zone?
- How do you protect us from invoice, supplier and crew payment fraud, and help with PCI DSS?
- What is your response time when a booking or payment is at risk, out of hours?
- Is the price clear and per user, with security included rather than charged separately?
Where to start
If you are not sure where your agency stands, a short review is the quickest way to find out: confirm multi-factor authentication is on for every account including overseas machines, check that booking systems and backups are managed and test-restored, confirm a strict bank-detail verification process is followed every time, and make sure only approved software can run. Those few steps remove most of the risk and show where a travel-aware managed setup pays off.
The bottom line
When a travel agency’s IT is right, the business simply runs: people in every office and time zone reach the same fast systems, payments go where they should, threats are caught early, and travellers get answers whatever the hour. The technology fades into the background and the team gets on with looking after clients and crew.
That dependability comes from a setup designed, secured and actively managed for how travel actually works, not a generic contract. For a business that runs long hours, handles money and depends on a few specialist systems, a predictable per-user cost for that reliability is far cheaper than the downtime, fraud or lost productivity an ad-hoc setup eventually causes.
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 your data, your tools and your provider all working for you? Book a free IT and cyber security review with First Stop IT.