In your business today do you:
- Write letters to clients and suppliers in order to communicate?
- Send a telegram?
- Use the new device called a fax machine?
- Use instant internet communications - email, WhatsApp, Zoom and Teams etc?
The obvious answer can only be the latter. It’s instantaneous, efficient and cost-effective. It’s the evolution of business into today’s modern, high-tech world.
So why is the travel industry doing business on a ‘pre-fax’, outdated model?
Yes, the GDS and other technological initiatives are available, but the method of completing an airline booking has not changed in decades.
Working via the Iata rules, travel agents are subject to a set of rules and regulations that are designed to favour only one party in any transaction. This must surely be the most outdated and prejudiced model in today’s sophisticated environment.
Any business transaction must be to the mutual advantage of both parties and the risk shared equally by both parties. But this has never been the case in the travel world as we know it. It is a one-way, dictatorial transaction where you, the travel agent, as the purveyor of business for an airline,
- are hardly rewarded for placing the booking with the airline, but also,
- are required to carry all the risk in the transaction.
It goes further.
You are also bound by a set of onerous and inequitable rules and regulations that you have never had any say in formulating, and which you have little chance of challenging.
Again, this is the most outdated and offensive way of doing business!
Our retail industry had such a window of opportunity to force a change to this model during the first few months of the worldwide lockdown and the almost universal ban on travel. All we needed to do was look at the Iata website and the various statements put out by its CEO, regarding the plight of the airline industry. It was a window that gave the retail trade the grounds to demand a review of the status quo. To demand a change to the draconian rules that prejudice us with every booking we make. To demand that an equitable model emerge to the benefit of ALL parties, to replace a slanted and insulting model.
The airlines had their backs to the wall as they were unable to come up with the cash to meet refunds. This was in violation of their very own resolutions. Yet what did the retail industry do? NOTHING.
I personally lobbied industry personalities and industry bodies to take this opportunity and in turn lobby other countries’ associations and join hands in sitting down with Iata and formulating a fair and amicable new model to the benefit of the entire travel industry, but nothing seems to have transpired in the ensuing weeks and months and other issues seemed to have taken precedence.
Sadly, it’s no use trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. And a perfect opportunity is lost forever.
Allan Wolman
CEO Rosebank Travel
