FIGHT BACK : TRAVEL AGENCIES ADAPT TO SURVIVE, OFFERING A STILL-NEEDED SERVICE.Byline: David Horowitz
As recently as two years ago, travel agents were a mix of amateurs and professionals. Some agencies were large corporations, but most were storefront businesses. Those days are gone forever. The entire industry has been shaken to its foundations, and only the real professionals are likely to survive. What happened was that in February 1995, the airlines announced that they would no longer pay travel agents a 10 percent commission on the tickets they sold. Instead, agents would receive a flat fee of $25 on each one-way ticket and $50 on round-trip fares. That effectively slashed slash v. slashed, slash·ing, slash·es v.tr. 1. To cut or form by cutting with forceful sweeping strokes: slash a path through the underbrush. 2. agents' commissions by at least half - and often more. At that time, most travel agents depended on airline commissions for around 85 percent of their total business income, and for many of them, this was a devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. blow. For many agents, just staying in business became a test of ingenuity and resolve. And, for the first time, travel agents began charging service fees for selling tickets, something unheard of Not heard of; of which there are no tidings. Unknown to fame; obscure. - Glanvill. See also: Unheard Unheard before the airlines capped their commissions. Some in the industry believed that travelers would never stand for the fees and find other ways to book their flights. But what those travelers soon learned was that trying to compare air fares and arrange travel, either on the Internet or by calling the airlines directly, is tedious and time-consuming, and you don't always end up with the lowest fare. Many people decided it was worth a modest service fee to have a travel professional do the legwork leg·work n. Informal Work, such as collecting information or doing research in preparation for a project, that involves much walking or traveling about. . Even so, fees alone would not put travel agencies back in the black. One way to bring in new business was to focus on special-interest vacations - adventure trips to the Amazon, eco trips to the rain forests, ethnic tours of the ancestral ANCESTRAL. What relates to or has, been done by one's ancestors; as homage ancestral, and the like. homeland and sports vacations of every kind. Gay and lesbian travelers have nearly overtaken singles as the travel industry's largest specialty market. In order to reduce their dependence on airline ticket commissions, agents began to shift their business toward cruises and package tours, which offer higher profit margins. I'm sure it's no coincidence that just about the time the airlines capped their ticket commissions, Amtrak Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corp., authorized to operate virtually all intercity passenger railroad routes in the United States. Amtrak was created by Congress in 1970 in response to more than two decades of continuous operating deficits by privately run , cruise lines
Name Headquarters A'rosa Europe NCL America America AIDA Cruises Europe American Cruise Lines America and hotels raised the commissions they pay to travel agents. The bottom line is that there is still a market for convenience and personal service in the travel industry. And professional travel agents are still the best providers of that kind of service. MEMO: David Horowitz's column appears on Saturdays. |
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