After writing about stabiliser, which may be a solution to the ills we face, we should take a look at the problem. Here, I am thinking about the recent collapse of Freedom Direct and wish to pose some questions as well as areas where travel is clearly failing to provide reassurance.
Travel is a funny old world and comes complete with it’s own language, it’s own sayings and it’s own way of doing things. In many ways, it is unique; one of which, is that action to any request is usually required now. It’s no good getting around to sorting something out next week, if the client is stuck at Amsterdam airport and should be in Paris. The trouble is, the travelling public are simply not au fait with travel’s unique language and foibles. What is clear, however, from many of those that booked on Freedom Direct is that they are genuine folk from all walks of life and not all from a strata of society that can grasp the basics of rocket science in 10 seconds flat.
One thing the EEC managed to bring was chaos out of order and between them, the fumblings of HM’s Grateful Government, Trading Standards and the FSA, they have managed to create an impenetrable forest of systems and procedures which leave even travel agents dazed and confused. Heavens knows how Jo Public is supposed to understand it – so in turn, Jo Public is left dazed, confused and above all, angry. Very angry.
What do we need?
1. An understaning of what can happen if a modern agent goes down. In the past, we have had to deal with operator crashes and airline failures, where things have, on balance, been fairly clear cut. There is a side issue of bonding of scheduled airlines, but that is a debate for another place. We have had travel agents go down but what we have not seen, is large-ish online agents go down. What we are not prepared for is, say – What would happen if Expedia went down? Or Ebookers? This can never happen, of course. Just like Rolls Royce cannot go bust or Coca Cola cannot make a major cock-up with bottled water or the banking system cannot fail. So let’s get real, can we cope with a major online failure? No. The powers that be need to stress test their systems now.
2. A clear route map for those in trouble. ABTA deals with their bit, the CAA theirs and if one is lucky, another agent comes along and tries to pick up the pieces. Trading Standards could not give a rancid roadkilled rodent, the Financial Standards Authority now holds, in the eye of the Public, about as much respect as one may give, say, a small piece of green goo and the credit card companies try and fob people off by telling Jo Public they should claim from ABTA, the CAA or a little man that runs a road side cafe just off the A34. In his blog, Alex Bainbridge suggested that we (I hope, meaning the travel industry) should make more of an effort to help those who get into trouble, at least to evaluate their booking paperwork and point people in the right direction. This, he suggests, may be a task that could be undertaken by the newly retired or the newly unemployed, though I think the former may be better – in their circumstances, Jo Public, I am sure, would feel better if they were asking a “wise old head” .
3. Make sure that such systems that do exist, work. Certain firms bask in their membership of ABTA. Yet when the chips are down, they seem to forget this. ABTA, inter alia, winds up having to beg, cajoal, shout at and bang heads together in order to make the system work. This is not good. If you accept the mantle of respectability any upright trade body holds, one must act and abide by the precepts that mantle gives – and at all times. And especially when the proverbial hits the fan. One hotel booking company I saw in passing, displays ABTA membership on its front page – even a travel industry award – yet you have to route around to find the number. That said, it is an improvement. Bonding is the big issue. Yet who is bonded and for what? To whom? IATA bonds agents, but that is only to make sure that the airlines, not Jo Public, get their dosh. Advantage bonds agents for their CAPS (a direct debit system for agents to pay the tour operators) which indirectly holds a fair chunk of money which can help Jo Public. ABTA bonds, the CAA bonds – the list goes on.
4. Explain in simple English and keep procedures simple. The travel business needs to learn English and a version of English which all can understand. This is, of course, closely tied into number 2, for I have heard it said that instructions on what to do and how to do it, have been issued by all sorts of people – but a lot of it is in travel speak; starting with “a package holiday” – very few, outside (and by all accounts, some inside) the travel industry understand what a “package holiday” is and more importantly, how it is presented to them. People have received a travel agents account for, say an Easyjet flight, yet that money has been debited direct from the clients card by Easyjet, not the agent – we in travel know what is going on, but as far as many are concerned, they are wondering how Easyjet has got their credit card details (Easyjet have done nothing wrong, by the way) Since the demise of ABTA as the “WYSIWYG” one-stop-bonding-shop, Jo Public has to become a travel agent – and quite a skilled one, to boot – to work out, even, whom to call first. It is no good writing reams about catergory this and category that – asking a member of the opublic to see if they hold a holiday booking where Freedom Direct “….acted as agents for other ATOL holders” is the same as asking me if I could go and fix the CERN proton speeder-upper, thingy, device. Keep it simple and clear.
5. Restore Honour. Very important. Company fails and suddenly, up pops the same outfit under a new guise as if nothing had happened. Not good enough. If you fail, you fail. Certain firms have failed and some people treat such failure as no more than an occupational hazard. This is, from an industry point of view, less than constructive and demonstrates a total lack of sensitivity. Those that fail should be required, freely and voluntarily, to help sort out the mess. To man the telphones, to explain. The trade bodies that do exist, do not have enough staff to cope with big, complex failures (see “stress testing”, passim) but what they should have – what we in the industry should have – is a voluntary system that can click into place to, at least, explain to those that have been caught up, where they should go for help. If required, then those in the travel industry that do help (including the frontline troops of the failed company) should be paid a fair sum and such money should come from – and be part of – any bonding system.
6) Bonding should come, once again, under one body. For everything. The old stabiliser system was, effectively, a one-stop-shop. Though I bang on about getting back to this old system which worked, I also recognise that to do such may not be practical. We must, though, co-ordinate bonding under one body (ABTA would be the obvious one). Bonding must be complete and we in the travel industry must stop trying to find ways around it. One of the complaints about the old Stabiliser system was the high entry barrier and many of the larger operators objected to the large bonding sums required. People sort ways out – or rather -ways around it. Some even threatened to leave some trade bodies, if those bodies did not do things their way. This was and is, despicable. The level was high because firms were dealing with large sums and had low margins. Those large sums (as I have said before) would be a hard working famillies biggest single annual outlay. Protection for that money, that outlay, is not something that should be “got around”.
The above may not be a pancea, but it may be a start. As we have progressed the road of regulation since 1992, we have branched out, turned around and that wide open motorway has withered to become tiny lanes through the backwaters of the industry. We do not need more regulation, or laws or instruction. The pieces of the puzzle are already on that broad and open table, we just need someone to fit them together. To understand them and to translate them for a public whose respect and tolerance for an industry that was once hailed as a beacon of self-regulation, has sunk beneath a mire of verbage and confusion to a shameful level.
