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“50% Discount!”
“Cut out the center man”
“Its cheaper on the web!”
“Free Insurance for a year!”
“Book direct and save!”
“No Booking Fee!”
Are you confused? does one know the difference between a agent , a tour operator and a consolidator. does one know who is offering the simplest deals? Is free insurance and 20% discount better than 50% discount? the united kingdom travel industry may be a minefield and mine detectors are nowhere to be seen.’Understanding UK Travel Industry’ is our plan to unravel a number of the confusion and advise you on the way. we do not pretend to be unbiased and that we acknowledge that our opinion doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of others within the business, but we do attempt to be honest and provides the facts as we see them. Hopefully you’ll find the pages useful.
TOUR OPERATORS
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Tour Operators put together the varied elements of a typical holiday and sell them as package holidays.They sell their packages either direct to the general public and/or through travel agents. the value of a vacation can vary greatly between tour operators (see examples). If they sell through travel agents, they pay a commission (usually a percentage of the vacation price) to the agent.Most people are conversant in the massive tour operators like Airtours, Thomson and JMC. Such tour operators offer a huge range of holidays and a huge range of destinations, and their buying power ensures reasonable prices. However, always remember that there are thousands of other tour operators out there. Many are small operators, specialising in specific markets or specific destinations. and their prices are often very competitive.Tour Operators are available for tons of criticism from consumer groups and watchdogs. Whilst, there are, of course, excellent operators and really poor operators, we believe that generally , customer service within the travel industry leaves tons to be desired (at all levels, including operator to agent, agent to the buyer and operator to consumer).
Direct Sell
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Some tour operators will only sell their package holidays direct to the buyer , bypassing the agent . Other will sell through travel agents and also direct to the buyer et al. sell only through travel agents.”Is it not cheaper to shop for direct then?”, you’ll ask. the solution is “well, perhaps sometime, if … and but…”. allow us to explain…First we’d like to clear up a misconception which has evolved from a deplorable series of TV advertisements. These advertisements were designed to discredit travel agents. One especially , indicated that travel agents ADDED commission to tour operators’ prices and thus charged the client quite the quoted prices. this is often totally inaccurate and resulted in complaints to the ITC (Independent Television Commission), which were upheld. The ITC also required the broadcaster to cease further transmission of the advertisement in its current form.The truth is, clients booking through travel agents don’t pay quite the operator’s quoted prices. In many cases, they really pay but the operator’s quoted price because travel agents often give a number of their commission back to the client as a reduction . Further details and therefore the ITC’s ruling is out there here.Right, that’s that out of the way – back to the question and therefore the answer…Generally, there’s little advantage buying direct from a tour operator who also sells through travel agents. The tour operators don’t want to alienate the travel agents and consequently, you’ll usually get similar prices from both travel agents and ‘direct’.Tour operators who only sell direct to the general public offers good value. they do not pay commission to travel agents which should allow them to sell holidays a touch cheaper than if they did. However, bear in mind that:
* the tour operator has the additional cost of supporting the client that might traditionally be borne by the agent (resort and accommodation information, visa and health requirements, changes to bookings etc).
* there could rather be identical (or very similar holidays) available cheaper with other tour operators, but in fact , the direct sell operator won’t offer competitors products to the client, unlike an honest independent agent would. Equally there might be more suitable holidays available with other tour operators.Our advice: – only buy from a ‘direct sell’ operator if you’re absolutely sure exactly which holiday you would like which no other operator does it cheaper.
TRAVEL AGENTS
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Travel Agents are agents for tour operators. Generally, they sell package holidays (and other products/services) on behalf of the tour operator and are paid a commission or fee by the tour operator for doing so. additionally to package holidays,most travel agents will offer other products and services such as:
- Travel Insurance
- Flights
- Car Hire
- Ferry Crossing
- Train Tickets
- Advice and knowledge
Independence
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Many of the massive UK chains of main street travel agents actually belong to companies that also own the UK’s major tour operators. We class these as ‘non-independent’.Independent travel agents are people who are independent of their suppliers, and typically , therefore, have greater freedom to provide a wider range of products from a wider range of tour operators In our view, non-independent travel agents will always have great difficulty in offering a completely unbiased service to their clients.
Range of Products/Services
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The range of products/services offered varies from agent to agent . especially , the amount of tour operators supported by agents varies considerably.Most ‘High Street’ travel agents will actively promote and sell only certain tour operators’ holidays. Their ‘racking policies’ dictate which brochures they’re going to display in their shops and this is often generally determined by commercial agreements with tour operators. Basically, the more commission the operator pays, the higher chance of their brochures being racked. Further, if a agent is non-independent, this will greatly influence which tour operators are promoted.These policies limit the amount of tour operators that are actively promoted by staff . Holidays from many operators aren’t sold in the least .At Holiday Bargains, we are often asked by our clients, ” Well why did Lunn Poly not offer me that one?” (for “Lunn Poly”, you’ll also read other ‘High Street’ travel agents). The difference is that we don’t operate a ‘racking policy’ and that we won’t restrict our range of suppliers supported the commission that they pay. more Coincidently, at the time of scripting this document, one among our Holiday Bargains consultants has had a search from an employee of a serious ‘High Street’ agent , who was, apparently, unable to seek out the vacation she required at an equivalent price as we could get. (We found the vacation with a smaller operator which isn’t a part of an equivalent group because the travel agent).
Choosing a agent
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(Yes, its obvious what’s coming, but we passionately believe it..) Our advice is to always book through an independent agent .This will not guarantee excellent service and costs , nor will booking with a non-independent agent guarantee poor service and costs . However, we believe that you simply are going to be more likely to get:
* truly independent advice and guidance
* an agent with the liberty to use a good range of tour operators and other suppliers.
