I WOULD like to reply to Don Rainbow’s comments (Travel Weekly March 22) regarding my March 8 advertorial.
Don mistakenly accuses me of making an attack on independents, nothing could be further from the truth. My purpose was to assist independents, by returning to the roots of what independence means. A lot has been said about the independent travel agent without much attention to who really wears the tag.
I do not think that receiving a higher commission or incentive from an operator for selling a specific product prohibits an agent from being independent. This is particularly true of an agent that is the sole master of his business, he is unlikely to pass up a sale because it did not meet his master’s qualifications.
I do believe that organisations such as Global Travel Group, Nova Travel, Airtours/Advantage etc. are not independent!They are commercial organisations. Each of them has objectives and their franchises ultimately must contribute to these objectives, regardless of the product sold. The concept of a franchisee and independence are to my mind mutually exclusive.
That Don finds the ideology of those organisations similar to his own is not surprising after all, one would hardly expect him to have subscribed to be a franchise in an organisation with incompatible ideals. I appreciate Don’s sentiment but Rainbow Flights, in my opinion, is fiercely franchised not fiercely independent and does not enjoy the same level of freedom that a Travel Trust Association member or an ABTAmember does.
Todd Carpenter
Director of operations
Travel Trust Association
London