Can I use travel agency software to automatically issue tickets to my customers after they book, or do I have to do that manually?

Yes, you can set up your travel agency software to issue tickets automatically when a customer completes a booking, though how this works depends on which suppliers you are connected to and what your software plan includes. Most modern travel agency platforms can integrate with airline and hotel systems so that confirmations and tickets are generated instantly without you having to step in. This saves your team time and gets your customers their documents faster, which is especially important for flights where you need to issue a ticket within a certain window to hold the reservation.

The automation works best when you are booking through a travel API that connects directly to suppliers. Some suppliers will send the ticket back to your system right away, while others might take a few hours. For hotels, the confirmation usually comes through immediately but a physical or digital voucher might be generated separately depending on the hotel's system. The key is that your software needs to be set up to receive these confirmations and pass them along to your customer automatically through email or your portal.

There are still some cases where you might need to step in manually. If a booking needs special handling, if there is an error, or if a customer has specific requests, you would need to contact the supplier yourself or adjust things in your system. Some older suppliers might not support full automation either, so you would generate and send tickets by hand for those bookings.

Check with your software provider what level of automation is included in your plan and which suppliers support instant ticket issuance, since this can vary quite a bit depending on your setup.