If I move to new travel agency software, can I bring my old bookings and my customer list across with me?

Yes, in most cases you can bring your old bookings and your customer list across, but how cleanly it goes depends on what your current system will let you take out.

The usual way is an export from your old software, normally a spreadsheet or a CSV file, holding your customers with their contact details, and your past bookings with the travel dates, the passenger names, the supplier reference and the amounts. That file is then mapped onto the matching fields in the new system and loaded in. Customer lists almost always come across without trouble, because the information is simple and every system stores it in much the same way. Bookings are harder, because each system keeps them a little differently, so some columns may not have an obvious home and a few things will need to be typed in by hand or left out.

It helps to be clear about what an import can and cannot do. Old bookings brought in this way are records, useful for your reports, your accounts and your follow up with the customer. They are not live with the airline or the hotel any more, so you cannot cancel them, change them or reissue a ticket from the new portal the way you can with a booking made through it. Anything still due to travel is usually safer left where it was made until that trip is over. If your current provider will not give you an export at all, there may be very little to move, and that is worth finding out early.

Ask your current provider in writing for a full export of your data, look at what the file actually contains, and only then agree what will be moved and what you will keep as it is.