WHEN is an independent no longer an independent? When it ceases to be self reliant, autonomous, unconstrained, free, or separate. At least that’s what the thesaurus told me.
Within the travel industry it would seem that many companies use the term very loosely, and following the recent wave of change and consolidations within our industry of late, never has the topic been so hotly debated.
Can you stay within the Association of Independent Tour Operators? Will you be allowed to attend the independents conference? With which particular travel paper will you now place your much advertising?
It would appear from Travel Weekly’s latest “Lunch-time discussion” on February 17 that a number of tour operators believe that if, once they are purchased, they remain as a ‘stand alone’ operation, it is perfectly acceptable to promote themselves to the travel trade as the same organisation they were before.
While products, brochures, staff, and service levels may all remain the same as far as the customer is concerned, surely it is stretching the truth just a little for the subsidiary company to describe itself as ‘fiercely independent’, or likewise.
I accept these businesses are operating ‘independently’ of each other, as my own recent experiences at my former company Panorama would support. Existing management and staff are being retained by the parent company and left alone to run their operations.
But let us not forget that while some of these companies may choose not to sell their products through multiple travel agents, the change in ownership means that profits generated from sales through the ‘independent retail sector’ will benefit the same people they are choosing not to work with.
Independent agents must now consider this when recommending and selling a particular operator in the future. Whilst all agents may sell whatever is right for the customer, this will be interpreted very differently depending on which agent you book through.
Paul Riches, sales and marketing director, Cosmos