BRIDGE Travel stalwart Richard Dupuis delivered a warning to the trade as he retired after more than three decades with the operator.
Speaking at a commemorative dinner in Paris, the Bridge group managing director said retailers need to adapt to the changing market to protect their business – those who don’t will be swallowed up by digital TV.
He added that Bridge itself needs to move with the times by tapping into technology and combating the threat of low-cost airlines.
Dupuis, who will remain a non-executive director of Bridge until the end of the year after spending the past 20 years as group managing director, said its accommodation-only Web site was important for both the operator and agents.
“Low-cost airlines have carved out a significant niche for themselves,” he said.
“Customers are comfortable booking a flight and finding accommodation themselves and while accommodation-only may not deliver the margins of a package, we need to offer it.
“Agents will also have to get involved and book through our Web pages. They will be able to show hotel rooms to the client. It is an enormous opportunity.”
He added that retailers cannot afford to get left behind by the technological revolution.
“They need to get their finger out,” said Dupuis. “If they leave it much longer I believe digital TV will, quite frankly, take over.”
Dupuis said he may contemplate entering the technological age himself in the future.
“I may launch a dot com company one of these days,” he said.
New managing director Brian Fell, who has been deputy for the past two years, said he isn’t planning any major shake-up at Bridge in the wake of Dupuis’ retirement.
“We have an established team that has been at Bridge a number of years,” he said. “This move has been planned for the past couple of years so we have moving towards this for some time.”
Fell added he would look at selling Bridge products through a number of European countries after asuccessful trial in Scandinavia.
n See Bridge Travel In the Picture, page 38