FLIGHT Centre has reported record sales at the opening of its newest high-street travel agency, highlighting once again that customers value in-person service, and that bricks-and-mortar travel agencies, in the right locations, are far from obsolete, and that walk-in business can be good enough to justify expensive high-street rental.
Flight Centre Travel Group South Africa MD, Euan McNeil, said the new Mall of Africa outlet, which opened in November last year, had achieved record sales.
“In a lot of ways, the pandemic has strengthened the need for people to use an expert,” he said. “We are seeing extremely strong levels of demand throughout stores, with people enjoying being able to sit down and talk through options and questions with a travel expert in person. It shows the value of having an accessible store in a great location.
“We are always looking for talented individuals to join our business.” Flight Centre is actively recruiting for more in-store leisure and corporate consultants.
Value of expertise
Some online travel agencies (OTAs) also recognise the value of face-to-face consulting, particularly in today’s complex operating environment, and concede that there are some aspects of the business that can be difficult to replicate online.
Travelstart South Africa Country Manager, John Friel, said COVID-19 had made travel more complicated, and that navigating restrictions was complex, even for the most experienced agents. “Now more than ever, human contact is needed to give advice and build confidence in travel again.”
Despite the online nature of OTAs, Friel said: “There will always be the customer who wants to put a face to the person they are doing business with.
“Online is a very different model, and it attracts a very different type of customer. It is unlikely that online will replace the traditional travel agents.” He said customers who needed simple itineraries were more likely to use an online platform. “For complex itineraries and package holidays, even the most online-savvy customer will struggle somewhat.”
Gary Mulder, MD of Club Travel, said the question was: “When things go wrong or things change, do you as a traveller want to rather pay a professional to take care of it, or try to resolve it yourself?” I think people are realising that their time is more valuable in these cases, and would rather entrust their complex travel needs to an expert.”
FlightSite GM, Kim Kral,said there would always be a sector of the travel market that preferred a face-to-face relationship with their consultant, or weren’t comfortable booking online, but online travel agencies could compete by ensuring they had efficient and effective after-sales assistance and support to help clients. “A growing number of customers are happy to book their own flights, accommodation and car hire online.”
“I don’t think you can fully replicate online the appeal of an in-person experience in a store,” said McNeil. “In our everyday life we are bombarded with online advertising and an extremely wide array of options. It can often be confusing and overwhelming for customers. In a store environment, you are able to declutter the messaging and simplify the complexity for a customer through interactions with an expert. This is a great benefit of an in-store environment that is hard to do online. While online may have greater reach at times, I feel the reach through a store environment is often of a higher quality for the customer.” He said service levels and simplicity remained the two key components.
Travel Counsellors South Africa MD, Mladen Lukic, said most companies were careful to incorporate the benefits of both models. “It is unlikely that ‘high street’ travel stores will be totally eliminated in the near future [as long as they have] enough brand exposure to justify their presence.”
Lukic believes the retail landscape will continue to evolve, and that TC’s ‘relational’ model (based more on relationships and person-to-person service, even though digitally) has the required mix of technology and good product.
“Our focus is and will be to ensure TCs have access to unrestricted range of product (as opposed a predefined catalogue) to ensure they can use their vast professional expertise to produce genuinely personalised itineraries. Equal focus is on supporting client engagement pre, during and after each booking. This side of our business model has distinguished TC from its competitors during COVID and is the foundation for our business post COVID.”
