Be prepared for the worst
This weekend marks the start of the school holidays and what the travel sector hopes will, at last, be its peak time of the year.
Fingers are being crossed all over the country that the great summer getaway is finally going to happen.
But with the country only just coming out of the football World Cup hangover and basking in the hottest weather for nearly 100 years, it is going to be a hard slog to get people to hot and sweaty airports.
Those who do will find a message lurking in their daily newspaper from the travel industry’s main trade association warning them the holiday they are going on may not be protected .
Not the nicest thing to read when you are boarding a flight for your main family holiday of the year.
If they are avid readers of the travel trade press then they will also be hit with the news the CAA will have no bones about pulling the plug on travel companies during peak times even if they have hundreds of people overseas.
The industry is bracing itself for how the changes in consumer protection rules and ATOL bonding in particular are going to play out in the real world this summer.
It is vital we prepare ourselves for the worst – namely a major company failure that affects holidaymakers overseas.
Whatever differences our trade associations and operators have, they’ll surely agree on one thing: what’s needed is a coherent, consistent message for the whole industry to counter the inevitable pubic and media outcry if and when the worst happens.
Supporting, or even understanding, travel’s consumer protection regime, is hard enough for the trade. Getting the public and media on side will be doubly difficult.
Give us a Bob
So, Paul Evans of Lowcostbeds is looking for a Bob Geldof figure to champion his Travel Aid idea.
If he had time between launching websites and keeping up his media profile Evans would be an excellent, and a bit more cultured, Geldof himself.
But in case he can’t, any suggestions or volunteers out there?