I fear our industry will suffer in terms of trust and reputation

The travel landscape is changing, and every man and his dog seems to think that it’s easy to learn to become a travel agent and easy to make money as one.

Those of us doing this job as a career know that isn’t the case. It never has been and never will be. Multiple businesses are making it cheap and simple to enter the industry with little or no experience required and, in our opinion, those people taking up such positions might not have the support required to enable them to do a good job. 

Of course, we understand that markets are there to be disrupted, but if this isn’t done in a strategic and professional way, we fear our beloved industry will suffer in terms of reputation and trust. Ultimately, it’s the end customer who suffers at the hands of this.

And although AI is becoming an increasingly handy and attractive tool, it is also a huge worry across all sectors as it’s often difficult to work out what is and isn’t real – something we’re seeing increasingly, particularly on social media. 

What does this mean for professional travel experts? In essence it means we have to up our game and continue doing everything we can for our clients. It’s our job to provide support and information on entry requirements, topical matters affecting the destination, weather, currency and insurance reminders, to name just a few. 

Our key difference has to be our caring approach, professionalism and consistency. If you’re an experienced travel professional, no matter where you work, you should be shouting about what makes you stand out from the crowd.

Savvy advice 

That’s why we recently decided to launch our Savvy Traveller policy at Designer Travel, which we put together using our insider knowledge of the problems a customers might encounter if they don’t have their wits about them when booking a holiday.

The foundations for the policy were built using our own personal learnings during two recent fraud incidents, one that was internal and the other external – a customer of ours who also happened to work as a homeworker for another travel business. 

In regard to the external fraud, the customer would have known the signs to watch out for had we launched Savvy Traveller a year ago. Hindsight really is a wonderful thing! 

Customer guidance

Savvy Traveller covers a lot of ground, including what to look out for when choosing a holiday, plus hints and tips on making the booking and the journey. The policy reminds customers to check the company’s Abta number to confirm their contact is who they say they are, and to never pay into the personal bank account of any travel agent. 

It also covers where to find practical advice on entry requirements, and although we have an in-depth section on sustainability on the Designer Travel website, there is a separate section included in our new policy on what we can all do to help animals and local environments while travelling.

I know I speak for many people in the travel agent community who have the same worries we do about the challenges facing the industry, which is why we decided to tackle the problem and create something that we hope clients and the whole industry will find useful. 

To be 100% clear, this policy is not aimed at any one business or sector, it’s purely aimed at giving anyone who travels a heads-up with some practical advice. We are more than happy for anyone to use it. We have sent it to Hays Travel – the consortium we’re part of – Abta and various other parties in the hope that they might pick this up and run with it, or adapt their own versions.

The more we can all do to educate the travelling public to help protect themselves, the better and safer the UK travel industry will be for us all.