Sometimes it can be cheaper to buy all or part of a holiday through a travel agent. Some years ago we went to Western Canada and booked through a ‘Canada specialist’; we had some lovely hotels and excursions all of which were at a lower cost than we could have booked them ourselves. This was particularly true for the two day trip on the Rocky Mountaineer train, very expensive but some of these Canada companies make block bookings with hotels and the likes of Rocky Mountaineer making it considerably cheaper. I suppose it comes down to doing your homework.