| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 08/05/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 10 |
| Copyright: Other |
Is the number up on respect?
I’ve just about had it up to the nether regions with airlines and tour operators putting on their steel toe-capped boots and using my and every other travel agents bodily parts as some sort of target practise in the name of cost/market share/distribution.The latest bruise to the belfries comes from Thomson and Airtours in their 2001 brochures.
Not content with the back-page script, next summer’s brochures have direct-booking details on nearly every page of all their latest publications.
What the hell is going on? As if we didn’t know.
The past few years have seen our once proud trade turn into a joke where the words discount and deal seem to rule in the minds of our customers.
Not only do our clients treat us like some form of auction house but it would seem to be the very people whose products we promote are intent on causing a few more bruises just for the sheer heck of it.
To place your direct telephone booking number at the bottom of the page along with Web site address and Teletext page numbers in the case of Airtours, then expect every travel agent to distribute this information on your behalf is just downright arrogant.
Nine times out of 10, the customer knows that brochure prices are only a guide because we’re all flogging ourselves to death to give away as much as possible to get them to book.
The sad thing is, they would book anyway if nobody offered discounts.
So chances are the customer will call the tour operator’s direct number, surf their Web site and then walk in with an even bigger pile of quotes from elsewhere and say those words that make your day just that little more special – “I’ve had a quote and wondered if you can do any better?”
Or maybe they’ll never get to your shop. (See Ryanair for advice).
So come on folks, get a grip on decency and start treating people who sell your products with a little respect as my nether regions can’t take any more.
David Geddes, Geddes Travelcenter, Greenock, Scotland