The demise of the travel agent has been predicted for as long as I can remember
Therefore I was delighted that, in last week’s Travel Weekly, Urbanweb managing director Steve Endacott stated that there was “undoubtedly a future for professional high-street travel agents.”
We are in total agreement that technology does indeed provide a vital selling tool for agents and it allows us the opportunity to give added value to the service that we already offer.
Steve’s comments only confirm my beliefs that those travel agents among us with foresight, who do concentrate on giving our clients an excellent service, will continue to prosper.
Customers will always want the choice of either booking on-line or going into a shop and talking to someone face to face because agents are able to provide a level of service which on-line booking methods cannot.
By combining a branch network with a presence on the Web, we are now able to make ourselves available to our clients 24hrs a day, at a time which suits their needs.
But unlike the Internet and digital TV, we are able to use our technology to pull all the different elements together and advise clients of all the options and alternatives that they might not have thought of by themselves.
At the present time, most principals appear to be pinning all their hopes on the Internet and yet 90% of the UK population are still without Internet access at home.
It may be an alternative method of distribution that is cheap and relatively easy to use but it is staid, archaic and very slow!
It is undeniable that digital TV will indeed prove to be a threat in the not too distant future but it is more likely to attract those people who don’t book through travel agents anyway.
Indeed, maybe Steve should be more concerned than I should as digital TV may prove a more considerable threat to call centres and Teletext operations?
But when we professional high-street travel agents are able to be forward thinking enough in order to embrace the methods of travel distribution which are attractive to our customers and, in addition, blend these with the personal, caring and knowledgeable skills of our staff – the customer undoubtedly gets the best of both worlds.
Professional travel agents have not been in such a strong position for years!