Travel Weekly’s Lucy Huxley notes a fundamental misunderstanding of supply and demand and the seasonal nature of firms’ finances
I have been writing for and about the travel industry for more than a quarter of a century and the thorny subject of school holiday pricing has been a recurring theme throughout that time.
Indeed, one of the more surreal moments of my career was bumping into Peter Kay in a lift just moments before having to make the industry’s case in an ITV This Morning debate on the topic more than a decade ago.
Over the past week, the job of correcting misperceptions fell to Abta’s Sean Tipton and Henbury Travel’s Richard Slater, who appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show to address criticism not just of prices, but of “travel agents” who were deemed to be fleecing the public.
As the initial discussion that prompted their appearance highlighted, the issue isn’t just about a fundamental misunderstanding of supply and demand and the seasonal nature of travel firms’ finances. It is also about a lack of knowledge of the structure of the industry – with the term “travel agents” used as a catch-all for anyone who sells or supplies holidays, and most others in the travel ecosystem.
Pleas to eliminate misuse of the term are unlikely to be heeded, sadly, and as long as school holidays remain largely concurrent for most families, this debate will continue to arise.
But despite our shared frustration, that shouldn’t mean we should ever stop promoting the reality that, far from being the bad guys, travel agents are actually the people best placed to make customers’ budgets stretch as far as possible.
Comment from Travel Weekly, February 6 edition