ABTA’S ALISTAIR ROWLAND


Travel Weekly webcasts: Abta’s campaign, angry customers, furlough failings and TTNG’S GARY LEWIS


Alistair Rowland; inset, Lucy Huxley, Travel Weekly


‘Government needs to see strength of feeling’


A


bta’s Save Future Travel campaign will have an impact on government if the entire industry gets


behind it and lobbies their local MP, says chairman Alistair Rowland. Last week, the trade body


launched its latest bid to pressure the UK government to change the rules on refunds for cancelled holidays – it got 13,500 backers in its first day. Rowland championed the


association’s lobbying of government but said grassroots support from the industry would make a key difference. He expects the UK government to


follow others in Europe in changing the Package Travel Regulations to allow credit notes in place of cash refunds for the time being. “You have MPs in their


constituencies dealing with local issues more than ever before,” he said. “What government needs to see


is the strength of feeling of the trade itself, of suppliers, the partners, the supporters and customers.” Rowland said an earlier Abta


campaign encouraging members to talk to MPs was “complex” but


10 16 APRIL 2020


the Save Future Travel initiative, featuring templated letters that users can send to their MPs, was “sensible”. This, he said, made it “not too


hard to send a letter to your MP”. “It’s going to be a huge campaign


for MPs to sit up and take notice of. And it’s very local to an MP, about a local business supported by all their customers and their supply chain. I think it’ll go viral very quickly and I think it will be powerful in a different way than the top-down lobbying. “The government is all about


[fighting] consumer detriment,” he said. “If we get a hundred thousand, or half a million, or a million responses into government saying the same thing, and they look over at the EU and see that all these countries have already [acted], I don’t see there’ll be a reason not to,” he said. “What Abta came up with, the


refund credit note idea, which wasn’t a change to secondary legislation with the Package Travel Regulations and which was enforceable and supported by the financial protection measures, was a very strong stance. But it’s not over until it’s over.”


Gary Lewis; inset, Lee Hayhurst, Travel Weekly


Be honest with customers about refunds, says Lewis


A


gents should have “honest conversations” with their customers


about their options for getting their cash back, says The Travel Network Group’s chief executive. Gary Lewis said the industry


should speak with one voice about the need to amend package travel rules to avoid wholesale insolvencies that would leave customers out of pocket. He said members of the


group’s Travel Trust Association and Worldchoice consortia had successfully convinced many irate customers to defer bookings. This, he said, had bought them


time, but warned that a “tidal wave” of chargebacks or refund claims could be imminent if the government refused to act on proposed changes to the Package Travel Regulations. Lewis accused people in the


industry who say customers should be refunded within 14 days, in line with the PTRs, of “not being


Our members


are having really tough conversations with customers


honest” and of being “disingenuous”. “Our members are having


really tough conversations with customers,” he said. “We all want customers to have


the financial protection that they have right now, but the truth is it’s simply impossible to put that money back into their pockets. “We have to be honest. The


honest conversation is ‘I want to refund you but the money’s not there; you’re going to have to wait two, three, four months’.” Lewis praised Abta’s work in


highlighting the plight of the sector and the jobs and livelihoods at risk. And he called on customers


to “be practical”, adding that it could take them up to a year to sue insolvent companies and months to get into a small claims court.


travelweekly.co.uk


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