p6 news mar5 3/3/10 12:57 Page 6
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ttglive.com
Interview David Speakman
recession with a second downturn this spring.
This will need clear political leadership post the
election that he believes neither party is provid-
Counsellors takes
ing at the moment.
Question of trust
Speakman is scathing about the role of the banks
in this recession and believes the solution is for
government to separate banks’ investment arms
the direct approach
from retail divisions, so customers’ money is not
used to finance speculative investments.
But the travel industry can hardly look on from
a position of virtue, he says, until it reforms how
firms including Abta agents handle money taken
Confident of growth this year, Travel Counsellors chairman
from customers in advance.
David Speakman tells Chris Gray why he is cutting out the
Travel Counsellors operates a system where
middleman and how the recession has been good for business
customer payments are placed in a trust until
they take their holiday. Barclays oversees the
system to see that every payment from every
I
t’s rare to hear a travel agent talk enthusi- Speakman puts that down to a recovering booking goes into the trust every day.
astically about cutting out the middlemen economy giving employees the courage to leave He believes trust fund models, rather than
– which might seem like a vote for self salaried jobs to try something new, although more regulation and bonding are the way to
destruction. But David Speakman says he acknowledges the enquiries could also be ensure consumers have faith that their money is
that is where Travel Counsellors is heading as coming from people made redundant last year. safe with travel companies, following collapses
it aims to reduce its use of bed banks and do Redundancies at Thomas Cook and Budget such as Freedom Direct.
more direct contracting with hotels. Travel in Ireland saw Travel Counsellors there take “The industry must stop using customers’
His counsellors will not be middlemen like a on three new recruits. money to finance business. They should go to
traditional agent if they move from a banks and finance it with normal debt.”
“transactional” to a personal relationship with Real growth He believes high street agents’ days are
the customer, he believes. Ireland is one of Travel Counsellors’ fastest grow- numbered because their business model does
“You’re not a middleman if you own the ing countries, says Speakman, but the UK is also not make them more attractive than DIY book-
customer. There is you, the airline and the hotel showing signs of real growth, not just against last ing online.
– the tour operator becomes the middleman. year but against 2008 before recession hit. “It’s not so much a matter of
The tour operator adds cost of say 15%, so go “From the start of our year in November so where they work, so much as the
direct to the hotel and the airline,” he says. far we beat 2008 on three days out of four. In relationship with customers – if it’s
The same will also apply to bed banks, now total we are 19% up on 2009 and 5% up on personal they will survive. If it’s
heavily used by counsellors putting together 2008.” transactional they will lose out to
packages for customers, because Travel The recession was good for us because we online, which offers the same thing
Counsellers and other firms will move towards had been telling all counsellors for some more conveniently and quickly.”
dealing directly with the hotels where they are time about the importance of main-
sending the most customers. taining contact with their cus-
tomers and really making the
Bed banks fall customer see them as their
The bed banks, he feels, are purely transactional trusted friend.
so will have to develop their own relationships They will need to keep at
with consumers – which they will find difficult – those techniques for a while
so their numbers will fall. yet as Speakman believes
“With the bed banks everybody is selling the there is a real danger of
same thing and they will amalgamate. There will a “double dip”
still be aggregators and intermediaries but there
will be fewer,” he warns.
The number of travel
David Speakman CV
counsellors in the UK is
1994-present
showing signs of increasing
Chairman, Travel Counsellors
again this year, after re-
maining flat at around 700
2008
in 2009, as enquiries to its
Inducted into The British Travel Industry Hall of Fame
recruitment website in the 1979
last month were double the
Established Speakman Travel, a chain of retail
same time last year.
travel agents in North West England
06 05.03.2010
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