Operators are increasingly hardening their attitudes to getting customers home when disaster strikes.
Speaking during an open forum entitled ‘The Moral Maze’ at the Aito conference in Brussels, many operators said in the wake of this year’s ash crisis they ensured their customers were well looked after, well informed and did everything they could to get them home as quickly as possible.
However, they drew the line at footing the bill for anything more than the most basic of costs, instead assisting stranded customers to get compensation from airlines or insurers.
Annabel Lawson, the director of Andante Travels who had 120 customers stranded overseas, said: “I don’t think it is morally right to say you will pay for every disaster in the world, I don’t think it is fair or even possible.
“We sit here saying, ‘We are tour operators and bring everybody back’, and that is what is expected. I don’t think it is right and people who come with us are grown ups and we look after them in a normal way.”
Manuel Mascarenhas, managing director of Wendy Wu Tours, had 110 customers stuck in China when airlines told him they would not be able to bring any of them home for three weeks.
Although he ended up paying a total of £1,500 compensation to those people, he was clear about where his priorities lay.
“It wasn’t a difficult decision to make at that point, I wasn’t willing to compromise the profitability of our business,” he said.
“Don’t compromise the future profitability of the business but also stay as close as possible to your customers.”
Nor did Mascarenhas have any problems as a result; he didn’t receive a single letter of complaint in the wake of the crisis.
Richard Rice, the managing director of Ski Safari, believes Aito customers were better equipped to deal with the problems as they are more seasoned travellers booking more adventurous holidays.
He added: “We felt the first thing to do was be absolutely clear about what our position was, we weren’t going to cover people’s costs. We would give them all conceivable help but not pay their costs.”
However, Noel Josephides, the managing director of Sunvil, argued that such an attitude could end up damaging tour operators in the long run.
He said: “People book with us because they trust us to look after them. With the ash cloud it would leave a very bad taste in my mouth if more tour operators turned round and said, ‘You are on your own.’
“For me the reputation of Sunvil is far more important than the profitability of Sunvil. I would feel very embarrassed to turn round to our clients and say we were not able to look after them.”