With apologies to Carly Simon and her 1971 hit single "Anticipation," I genuinely hope these are not the good old days.
I look back at a recent column ("Keep calm and sell cruises," March 2) with amusement now. Granted, it was written well before the current situation developed fully, but it seems so Pollyannaish in retrospect. Except that my underlying optimism about the future of the travel industry in general and the retail channel in particular is reinforced.
Read on to find out why. And to be transparent, I am persuaded that those reading this column are most likely not the ones I'm describing.
The retail travel sales channel will emerge fundamentally changed forever.
The best information I can find suggests there are about 10,000 traditional agencies with 15,000 locations. I believe consolidation and outright closure will reduce that number to about 7,000 agencies with 11,000 locations in the next 24 months.
Estimates of the number of home-based/independent contractor/part-time/hobbyist travelsellers varies, but about 90,000 seems a good number. About 30,000 of that total produce less than $50,000 in annual sales.
At some point, the stress and time invested in handling bookings will lead to indifference to the process and abandonment of the reservations to the host agency or supplier. A dear, departed friend, Jeff Kivet, characterized this as a situation where "the juice isn't worth the squeeze." Simply put, I believe that as many as 18,000 of those who do not depend on selling travel as a primary source of income will cease doing so.
Facebook and various internet forums have been rife with complaints by those who booked with an OTA or a big-box travel agency waiting on hold for up to seven hours to resolve a matter that a local travel professional might have taken less than 10 minutes of a client's time to work out.
Similarly, some of those who booked direct with suppliers have waited on hold for extended periods of time (welcome to our world) and have come to realize that the supplier agent is not their advocate as would be a local travel professional.
So how can any of this be positive and lead to optimism?
• Those travel professionals finding a way to navigate through this obstacle course will emerge with fewer competitors seeking a slice of the pie. Granted, the total pie may be smaller for a while, but the opportunity for growth will be there.
• Some percentage of those who booked with a headset instead of a local travel professional will never go back to that booking method again.
• Some percentage of travelers will decide that the big-box travel seller rebate card to buy stuff in the store is less valuable than the time they spent on hold, and they will never book with them again.
• Some percentage of direct bookers will decide that having a travel professional as their advocate who will spend time on hold so that the client doesn't is a good idea and will never go back to booking direct again.
It's like this: Retail travel professionals are a tough bunch ("Travel agents and cockroaches," Feb. 28, 2011). I am confident that those reading this far are the ones that will survive. We'll come out smarter, more valued by our clients and become more profitable in the bargain. Tomorrow will be a better day.
P.S. I found and have a good supply of the cockroach pins mentioned in the 2011 column.