Virgin Holidays’ decision to become a direct-sell only tour operator has been branded a “joke” and “no surprise”.
Amanda Matthews, managing director of Designer Travel, said: “They are saying they want total control over the overall customer experience to be the best but I would like to challenge them to prove that they offer a better service than we (agents) do.
“The fact they think they can enhance the experience of a good travel agent is a joke, and I think they are underestimating the extra miles that we go to for our clients.”
She added: “I’ve sat there at 2am booking tickets and fast passes for my clients travelling with operators including Virgin Holidays, and I’d be very surprised if their call centre or agencies will be doing that.”
Miles Morgan, managing director of Miles Morgan Travel, said: “This comes as no surprise. I have been saying forever that you can’t build a retail travel business with a company that wasn’t willing to work with you.
“They had reasonable commission but you could never make it because they would always undercut with discounting.
“They say they want to ‘own the customer’ but really, they hijacked the customer.
“I have had my business for nine years and we’ve never sold Virgin Holidays – the writing was on the wall that this was going to happen so I’m underwhelmed by the announcement.
“In an ideal world we would have worked with such a well-known brand but they did nothing to encourage a relationship.”
Stuart Wilson, managing director of Blue Bay Travel, described the announcement as a “landmark”.
“I am not surprised by this,” he said.
“For too long now Virgin Holidays has been losing ground to other trade friendly tour operators in the same market.
“They have an exceptional consumer facing brand and while there are other more trade friendly tour operators out there, this is a sensible business decision for them.
“Like everyone else, our business with Virgin Holidays has diminished over time. The message has been coming through from them for a long time. We choose our partners very carefully and can see when some brands are making more effort in that area.
“Virgin Holidays has very well trained staff and my thoughts and concerns are with anyone who might lose their job as a result of the decision.
“I’m sure a lot of tour operators out there will be very happy today.”
Members of the Travel Gossip community on Facebook were also quick to make their opinions known, with some stating that they were already taking Virgin Holidays’ brochures off their shelves.
Kate Harris implied no one would be surprised by the announcement, before adding: “Been heading that way for years but denying it.”
Nicholas Lee replied: “I would love to use other operators, but for every booking made this summer not once have they been able to get close to Virgin’s price, or dates are too far in the future (2017).
“Since Virgin seemed to have stopped undercutting agents our sales have gone through the roof for them.
“It seems a shame at the time it all seemed to be going right (good call centre, good prices, and no undercutting) they choose to go direct.”
Andy Tomlinson said: “Good news for the likes on Funway, US Airtours, Travel 2, Gold Medal, JTA, Premier, Jetset and the likes though. We’ll survive.”
Andy Travis, national sales manager at Funway wrote on the site: “Funway are here to support the trade and help out wherever we can with our travel trade partners.”
Commenting on the Travel Weekly article, Full Circle Travel said: “’It can no longer add the value and the consistency of service it wants if it doesn’t own the customer’ – good luck with that!”
Matty added: “Did it drop off a cliff when you (Virgin Holidays) dropped viewdata and the super easy late deals search you used to have? God I wish these tour ops would listen to the field sales staff occasionally.”