There are more signs out there that the travel agency community is
shrinking.
The International Airlines Travel Agent Network reported that
its registration list of agency employees dropped by 1% last year,
the first decline since the airline commission cuts were introduced
in 1995.
There is some reason to believe that recent Iatan audits have
forced agencies to be more honest in reporting the number of
eligible employees on their payrolls. Still, Iatan challenged far
fewer names in 1999 than in 1998, and yet the registration list
dropped. Any way you slice it, there are fewer agents out
there.
On a smaller scale, Echols International Travel Training in San
Francisco, one of the West Coast's oldest and most respected travel
schools, closed its doors abruptly last month after 25 years.
The family-run school has graduated an estimated 3,000 students
since it's been in business, and in its heyday, it had classes
averaging about 45 students. When only eight students enrolled in
its winter term, the school's owners decided to shut down.
Ironically, all 23 graduates of the school's last class in
December found jobs, and at higher salaries than ever.
"This is a great industry and it's growing, but that's not the
perception that people have," co-owner Nancy Rush told Travel
Weekly. "I wish the industry would get a spokesman out there to
make that point."
The point Rush wants made is that all the hand-wringing over the
airline commission cuts and competition from the Internet has given
the public the impression that selling travel is a dead-end career.
In fact, she stressed, specialty travel, inbound travel and on-line
agencies represent solid opportunities for trained travel
agents.
In other words, it's time to accentuate the positive. It
certainly can't hurt.