p36-37 Letters mar13 10/3/09 20:39 Page 36
Your letters
Operators should end myth
that online selling is cheaper
Speaking from the ski side of travel, it is an
absolute red herring that operators should talk
Brochures? Keep
about online pricing being different to pricing
in other forms of distribution. This is a myth
created by operators to undercut agents.
Why should a client obtain a cheaper price
when booking over the internet as opposed to
by phone? We all know that the cost of internet
’em out of reach!
marketing is now disproportionately high, with
excessive PPC (pay per click), SEO and IT costs.
Until operators sell at the same price as their
appointed agents there will never be any trust. THE “UNPAID brochure distribu- LET Why not have the brochures
tion” mantra from agencies such
OF THE
TER
tantalisingly visible but out of
Nick Edwards as Linda Johnson’s Co-operative reach, so the customer needs to
Snow Finders, Market Harborough Travel in Ulverston is a familiar
WEEK
engage at the counter?
one (TTG March 6). A conversation can then start.
Star Alliance is bags better Prospective customers are always Agents could then use any one of the
than oneworld for RTW tickets tempted to look for a deal by going direct: in range of websites carrying brochures in PDF
Most agents know that if you want to sell a RTW the old days it was direct to the operator or page-turning format, making it easy to
ticket you use Star Alliance to avoid problems because the agent was perceived as the work with the client to find the few pages
with baggage limits (TTG March 6). middle man; now it is to the ostensibly lower which deliver details of the holiday of their
Star Alliance has a better route network and cost of internet bookings. In both cases, choice. Handing over a printed brochure
sensible baggage allowances. Even that rising agents continue to bemoan their “unpaid would become the sales tactic of last resort.
star, SkyTeam, are better than oneworld. brochure distribution” status. This sort of setup should become common-
Interesting to see that after British Airways’ These days the cost of brochures is vast, place to educate the public. And it would
failed attempts to trouser Qantas, American the wastage is huge and the cost to the finally remove those feelings of victimhood
Airlines and even Iberia, they are now having environment is massive. In any other high among agents and end their difficult relation-
an ex-lovers’ tiff and will not even talk to one street shop, commodities of such value are ship with those racks of printed brochures.
another — at the expense of passengers. kept sitting behind locked, glass-fronted
cabinets. David Betterton.
Murray Harrold via ttglive.com Perhaps that’s what needs to happen in e-visibility consultant, Travel Logic Associates,
homeworker, Sam Smith Travel travel shops. Kelling, Norfolk
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36 13.03.2009
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