There used to be a myth that travel agents are lazy and while the myth may persist, it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Today, travel agents, the human kind, are either corporate agents or the entrepreneurial types who are scraping as fast as they can to make a buck, euro or quid.
Frankly, in the ever urgent world of needing to make money from the shrinking pie, they have to be increasingly efficient and don’t do things unless it contributes to the bottom line.
Agents are also very dependent on their GDSs, acknowledge the frailty of the system but, in the case of European agents at least, the extent of the content is barely adequate to provide ubiquitous service.
However, the increasing complexity in travel without the corresponding increases in net revenue makes for a hard life – things aren’t as much fun any more and perhaps agents have an inbuilt resistance to change.
At a recent Web In Travel conference in Singapore, Gerry Samuels of Mobile Travel Technologies, told a story of how when he was asked to develop an agent mobile solution, he developed a couple of options but agents chose the familiar green screen lookalike.
And how does the consumer perceive the agent?
To gauge this, I typed “why travel agents suck” into Google and turned up a pretty significant cache of results but put it in quotes and the results drop to nine.
Contrast this with the search term “why travel agents still exist” and you get 1970 results - good news or false hope?
Part of the problem is they are choosing something familiar and don’t know what will work in future.
They tend to be mired in process and the here and now, not that future state that mobile is representative of.
And, as the Boomers leave the market, older agents are retiring and dying off, imagine the new workforce coming in who won’t know how to work with green screens (or even blue ones for that matter!).
Like many businesses which struggle with the evolution of technology, the travel industry has tried very hard to make mobile a cornerstone of the next generation platforms.
But. are these solutions just pursuing technology for its own sake?
Perhaps a critical question is how are we making it interesting for young people – the internet generation – to work for the industry? Can we entice them in? Or are there just too many older generations trying to migrate their business instead of allowing creation of new business?
Sadly, the position I would argue is that intermediaries didn’t realise the importance of mobile and delegated responsibility (as they have for many years) to the suppliers and now find themselves out of the loop.
Indeed by ignoring mobile agents were bypassed by the suppliers and providers who found they could go direct to the consumer and that an agent in the loop didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
There is no shortage of applications for users of travel in the mobile space, but what about the number of b2b applications for the intermediary community? Very few are operating today.
Mobile in travel has a broader meaning than just fully functioning “agent in a box” services.
Most will agree that the better apps tend to do one thing really well and travel with all its complexity is not easy to do well.
And perhaps that is the crux of this story – agents left high and dry by mobile are a victim of the evolution of travel.
NB: Image via Shutterstock
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About Timothy O'Neil-Dunne
After contacting 2 large travel agencies for high end travel and letting them know I was going to book upon reciept of the quote, I have yet to get a call back so I wonder what is the benefit of utilizing a traditional agent. I would hesitate calling an agency unless there was no other option.
I utilized mobile technology to book my own trips and as a result have also started a travel concierge- travel planning company to help others.
Very interesting article, and couldn’t agree more that there are too few B2B applications for the intermediary community – in fact I’d argue there are too few truly useful B2B applications for the travel community as a whole.
One question though Tim: when you refer to ‘mobile’ do you mean apps that tend to only be used on a hand-held mobile device, or more generally to internet-based tools?
Andy… probably more the latter… it applies to both. During our session at TTE i described the issue of mobile of us being away from a fixed location.
Mobile – like many terms – is abused broadly. However in the context of Travel it should refer to Untethered rather than small handsets
Cheers
Timothy
Could it be that the travel agents themselves are not aware of the potential ROI of going mobile? For example, they may not be aware of the enhancement of their customers’ pre & post-travel experience with mobile or the ease mobile makes for their satisfied customers to refer people to them. Or perhaps the travel agents, I quote, preferring the ‘…familiar green screen lookalike’ are somewhat tech-averse? Either way, perhaps more education & training about mobile solutions are required before travel agents would start adopting them.
This is too true!:
However, the increasing complexity in travel without the corresponding increases in net revenue makes for a hard life –
However I would say that this part of the quote not quite right…
things aren’t as much fun any more and perhaps agents have an inbuilt resistance to change.
Trying to stay on top of everything, new airline rules, who is going bust, strikes etc, makes it hard to have any energy left to learn something new.
Working the front lines of travel is a hard slog these days the fun has been sucked out.
I say it’s time for a new way of doing things, I hope someone builds it soon for the sake of those that have to try to work with the frail dinosaur of the GDS on a daily basis.
Michelle
Oh so true!
So let me posit something which I think might make sense to you and put your comment in some context.
Most agents – who have good command of the GDS believe that the results that they can drive out of the system are better than the tools that the GDS actually gives you. On simple trips its not worth searching hard to save a few dollars/pounds/euros. On long haul trips then they can usually do a better job.
The GDS tools dont give you enough choice of options and so the agent has to work harder but is generally rewarded with a better result that the standard tools provide.
The first time that you get a failure out of bargainfinder, powershopper or masterpricer – then you lose confidence in it. However worse if when something you know is there just isnt – then that creates a loss of confidence.
So perhaps you are right – the old frail dinosaur needs a lot of help. The trade off in time taken to do something is a risk reward debate one has with oneself when working with the old box! Sadly there is no tool that does the search effectively with any degree of accuracy. But most agents would be happy with better tools than the ones that they get if they could be assured that the system would give them a qualitative measurement.
Now that would be a real enhancement. Perhaps the real answer is that we need to actually get a better and more consistent set of results across the different systems. Those agents who use multiple systems know that some GDSs actually have better results for some airlines than others. Also every good agent knows that the famous full content agreements dont always translate into fares and availability that the agent can see. Yes, I am saying that there is frequently a failure of the GDS to deliver parity with the airlines website.
So keep dreaming – there are some of us still beavering away trying to make the whole thing work better.
Cheers
Timothy
Tim I agree with most of what you are saying, I was one of the good agents when I worked the front lines, I knew my GDS inside out and how to manipulate it natively (I wouldn’t touch a script with a mile long pole) the way I wanted. In moving to the UK from Canada I was shocked when I saw how agencies work here, no $BBQ or WPNC or any equivalent to work with… really?! I felt like I had had my left hand cut off!
Regardless of the GDS tools one is using too many people think they can do it better themselves now, and they have access to most of the information in the GDS in some way or another. It makes one as an agent question where they fit in and what value one can add, and with the new generation who are savvy enough to go on-line and book themselves I only see it getting worse.
This leading to the quality of the agents out there going down hill as the margins drop and the pay gets even worse. Until there is a solution that gives agents a truly workable tool to out perform the public it makes it a very frustrating place to be.
I question the logic in trying to make a tool that was built in the 60′s and 70′s work in today’s Web 2.0, that perhaps there should be an open mind as to a possible better approach to make what has become a very fragmented industry more cohesive. If there should be someone with enough money, energy and ideas to make it work!
Tim, I agree with “GDS tools don’t give you enough choice of options”, but most agents feel bound by GDS contracts which are bit restrictive, leave alone the hassle of ‘learning to work with’ a different UI from another GDS. The agents would love to have technology – but the complexity of multiple systems with different standards to learn and work with, at an unearthly cost just puts them off.
This was the premise on which we built HotelHub, where the agent can continue his current GDS contract, while also get a single interface which pulls in rates from multiple GDS and non-GDS channels.
GDS themselves have understood the need to offer more options themselves (recent Amadeus – HRS deal), so that agents continue to use them. The Open Travel Alliance and other initiatives to evolve common standards would help technology providers bring forth simpler tools for agents to work with.
We can only hope this process moves a bit faster to serve the market need.