Back-to-back events were a great opportunity to debate pressing issues facing industry, says Tui UK retail director Kathryn Ward
As soon as I returned from the Travel Convention in Turkey I dived straight back in to making last-minute preparations for our own retail conference.
My Abta trip was the first time I had been to Turkey, and I thought it was a great conference destination with amazing hotels and a fantastic range of facilities.
I was really pleased to be chosen to sit on a panel alongside Lisa Minot, travel editor of The Sun, and Dr Yusuf Örnek, director of Antalya Tourism and Promotion, talking about sustainability and consumer awareness around the environmental impact of holidays.
We concluded that while sustainability isn’t a top priority for holidaymakers, they expect companies to be sustainable and think about these issues for them.
It’s important we all drive the sustainable tourism agenda forward and encourage hoteliers to be more environmentally friendly.
The conference was also a good opportunity to talk about how the industry has adapted to the new Atol regulations.
Tui is very much behind the Atol reforms and in favour of giving consumers more clarity on whether their holiday is protected.
Having invested considerable time and money in implementing the new regulations we are concerned that consumers are still not aware of the changes.
We feel that the CAA should be doing more to raise awareness of the Atol reform and hope that we see some effort in doing this over the turn-of-year period.
We are also not yet clear how the CAA is policing this new legislation and ensuring that all agents are adhering to it.
Since getting back from Turkey I have been working flat out on our own retail conference in Tunisia.
The conference is a huge project for our team, involving long hours and considerable expense, and we do get asked if the work we put in is proportionate to what we get out. I always argue in favour of the conference as it is the one time of the year the directors, retail team and shop managers get together.
This staff engagement makes agents feel proud to work for us and excited about what we do.
You just can’t put a price on this and all the hard work that goes into such an event does pay off somewhere else down the line.
Then we will start looking forward to turn-of-year, which is always one of the busiest and most high-pressured times for agents.
While we might have to work harder for the bookings, our industry couldn’t survive without early bookers.