National Travel Agent Day presents the perfect opportunity to highlight the work of the trade, says Advantage chief executive Julia Lo Bue-Said
Artificial intelligence and online platforms have turned holidays into a commodity. With just a few clicks, on your phone or during your lunch break at work, a whole trip can be booked in a matter of minutes.
Flights, hotels and car hire services have been rated and scored within an inch of their lives by previous users and star rating systems are well-honed in on guiding you one way or another. Thousands of pounds are spent on the advice of strangers, each with their own opinion, perspective, or experience, and whilst this opens up the world to so many in the pursuit of speed and convenience, we are all guilty of putting aside concerns in pursuit of golden, sandy beaches or rolling highland hills.
You would think then that the role of the travel agent expert – once a fixture on every high street, in every town around the country – would have been made obsolete. In fact, though, the opposite is true.
The Advantage Travel Partnership today represents 750 locations across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and a large proportion of the UK’s travel agency landscape. These brilliant businesses deliver outstanding customer service and consumer protections to millions of people each year and are proud to be pillars of the local communities and economies that they serve.
More: National Travel Agent Day to take place as planned this weekend
The last two years have been unbelievably challenging, and I hear recurring stories from business owners of mounting debt repayments, complexities as a result of Brexit, the challenges with recruiting staff, the additional workload that comes with flight cancellations, as well as having to navigate industrial strike action – all on top of managing the usual day-to-day challenges. All this is stretching businesses to their absolute limits, but travel agents are still fighting on, and it looks like the tide is slowly turning.
This recovery is being driven by an influx of new customers who are choosing to use travel agent experts to book their holidays, preferring experience and on-the-ground knowledge over chancing their arm through faceless booking sites. This move is not limited to what you may think of as the traditional demographic that would use a travel agent’s services. Instead, our members are seeing an increase in younger people, with 20% of new customers booking through an agent aged between 35-44 and 52% between 45-54.
In addition, our members who service managed travel are seeing an increase in corporate travel with more focus on duty of care and traveller wellbeing. This demonstrates that travellers and holidaymakers are increasingly looking for expert holiday advice and guidance in finding the best value break, inspiration and value the unwavering support of an expert if things don’t go as planned.
While trading remains positive, an unsettled economy means new pressures have come through alongside significant rises in operating costs. Add in a cost-of-living crisis that is seeing millions of people having to cut back on discretionary spending – money they might have once spent on a holiday is now going on household bills or the mortgage and rent – and the picture is still far from rosy.
Our members, many of whom are SMEs, are therefore being stretched to deliver the best service possible, in what is a highly competitive marketplace. In a recent business impact survey we undertook, 85% of our members stated their operating costs have increased by up to 25%, 47% reported that staffing levels remain a big concern and 31% are concerned about how inflationary pricing and economic uncertainty will impact consumer demand.
Saturday, July 22 is National Travel Agent Day, and it feels as good a time as any to make sure that our industry – in its successes and challenges – is front and centre. Our members are part of an economic sector that makes a huge contribution to the UK economy year after year, but we are repeatedly overlooked as the younger cousin of the wider travel ecosystem. Yes, it’s transport that takes people from A to B, but those planes aren’t much use if there is no one on them.
We are making the case to government that travel agents need to be seen for what they are – a huge asset to the UK that deserve recognition and representation for the work and contribution they make. The industry has to operate within a complex regulatory framework, and we want one of the Brexit dividends, to unravel these complexities to ensure consumers are clear on the consumer and financial protection they receive depending on how and who they book through.
The last 12 months has seen Brits return, in their millions, to booking though a travel agent expert regardless of the reason for travel, safe in the knowledge that they will not only get the best deals this way, but also for the peace of mind it affords in an increasingly complex and challenging world to navigate.
Our members are proud to do what they do and will continue to work tirelessly to open up the wonders of the world to UK travellers.