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You can look upon the culling of travel agents in two ways
- Thank god! Every big shopping centre or strip had between 4 and 6 travel agents. How did they make money? Some were absolutely brilliant, some had high staff turnover, some had loyalty, some were just there to feed off a longstanding local brand and many survived by under cutting the guy down the near the food court by $10 so Mr and Mrs Joe Blow got their 10 nights in Kuta “for a bargain price – I screwed ‘em down”. HQ made quick decision and they were gone.
- Dear god! Some of the best and brightest small / medium sized agents have just run out of steam & savings from refunding last year’s business. The hardest decision of their lives was to close or merge and admit they had been defeated. They were not just a line on a balance sheet – they were a living breathing part of their community. Most have found someone to hand over to (another agent) because they want their customers looked after into the future. (that’s just what we do)
Whichever god you believe in – the Australian travel industry is going through a long overdue correction at the expense of people’s jobs and livelihoods. I had heard, and the research escapes me, that Australia had one of the highest per capita penetrations of travel agents in the world. A steady production line that spat out an agency or 3 for every new shopping precinct and when they didn’t perform after a few months or a year – they would turn into a nail salon or one of those pop-up book stores that sells books that didn’t quite make the Dymocks Top 1000.
Ibis World research (in the section you don’t have to pay for) tells me that there was 8,467 businesses classified as Travel Agency and Tour Arrangement Services with 37,000 employees – with conservative estimates that we’ve lost 25% of those people and businesses (perhaps more) – we know 20/21 (Fin Year) is going to be down considerably until international travel resumes (no matter how hard we try to convince consumers to reverse the trends of the past 10 years and give us back their domestic holiday business, which we may have spurned in the past, to help prop us up)
21/22 will be the year for revenge travel, pent up demand, people who were on job keeper starting to get some disposable cash again, the affluent who didn’t escape on their yachts will splurge and it will be bigger and better than 2018 and 2019 and for those of us who survive – it’s going to be a bloody bonanza!
Less travel agents means more business for the rest of us in a recovering and eventually resurging market – BUT a hunting ground for smart OTAs and principals with direct booking capabilities. They are almost the only people advertising now – and whilst we can be glib to each other about how poor their refund response was, or “you’re a number not a name” or how personal your touch was in retrieving clients from Tanzania – they are watching and rubbing their hands together as “For Lease” signs go up across the travel agency community around Australia. Wouldn’t you?
It’s probably cognisant to finish off by saying that when a production line turns off it invariably turns on again when times seem to get better. It will be a disappointing day in the near future when the nail salon that was there last week morphs overnight into another travel agency we really don’t need. Less is more.
Stay Safe.
A. Nony-Mous