| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 22/05/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 10 |
| Copyright: Other |
Independents should bond together and discuss future
STOP the world, we need to regroup! Now that thedirect-sell strategies of the top tour operators are being seen for what they are, your pages are full of irate independents expressing everything from concern to white-hot anger. Even a degree of surprise.Will they ever learn? From Advantage/Airtours and ARTAC/Carlson/Thomas Cook to the British Airways commission saga, do they still fail to recognise that major tour operators and retail multiples are not the friendly faces they purport to be?
This is business and just as Spar would not look to Sainsbury’s for a “mutually profitable relationship”, independents will never have an equal share in a marriage with a multiple.
Instead, independents must surely regroup. ARTAC and Advantage might work as buying consortia (might) but their marketing both as brands and helping their members succeed as individual businesses is lacking.
What is needed is for independents of any brand to get together and look at their future.Yes, they face reduced commissions, direct sell, the rapid growth of travel dot coms and even mobile travel ‘counsellors’ invading their territory. But they are still closer to the communities they serve, have more mature staff, better specialist expertise and – dare I say – an even greater instinct to survive.
So, independents, step back, plan your future as a sector of the industry rather than as members of a particular trade or buying association and do deals with the right people.
And if the result is independent agents only selling Association of Independent Tour Operators holidays, then at least it’s been your decision, and not something that will be forced on you within five years anyway.
Martin Evans
The Tourism Business
York