| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 03/07/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 5 |
| Copyright: Other |
Dot coms set to raise profile
THEemergence of dot-com companies could raise ABTA’s profile even further as the various firms scrabble around for credibility.ABTAchairman Ian Reynolds believes the importance of the association is still paramount.
“There is nothing that says they have to be a member but it is good for their business. It gives them recognition in the market place. The dot-com companies are a totally unknown quantity,” he said.
“I think it’s very important that dot-com travel agents are members of ABTA. We’ve got about 12 in the membership. Our first application was about a year ago from the Travelstore.
“We’re quite clear we want these companies. Many belong to existing members anyway. The future is going to be based on these companies and we will be there to help them but we are applying the same financial criteria to them as to any member.
“It’s true we get a lot more initial enquiries and finding that they do not meeting the financial criteria is one of the reasons they fall away.”
President’s quotes
“The most important thing in the next three years is to ensure that our biggest members, in particular, all feel they’re getting value for money and make sure they stay with us. We don’t forsee many increases in subscriptions coming up – the cost of belonging to ABTA is falling.
I don’t think there’s much support for being more commercial but we’ve got to get better at influencing the Government.
ABTAas an organisation is more respected now because of the calibre of the board – there are commercially relevant people from large and small companies. It’s a club that’s worth joining.”
Current president Stephen Bath, of Bath Travel