ASTA and its counterparts from points as far flung as Australia, Europe and South Africa agreed to incorporate their fledgling trade group, the World Travel Agents Associations Alliance (WTAAA), as a nonprofit organization under Belgian law.
The WTAAA was informally created three years ago at ASTA headquarters to enable travel agents to address and exchange information on issues of broad interest. Since then, the group has spoken for the trade in some circumstances. For example, Mike Hatton, CEO of the Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA), has participated in IATA meetings on behalf of the group.
However, the group found the informality to be “a little bit of a barrier” to attracting participation from some national groups, said Bill Maloney, ASTA’s executive vice president and COO. Without a formal structure and without a Web site, “it seemed not to exist,” he said.
In addition, Maloney said the International Standards Organization, which “wants to apply worldwide standards for everything including agents,” didn’t recognize WTAAA, and “we want a seat at the table.”
At its meeting in Lyon, France, during ASTA’s International Destination Expo from April 12 to 16, WTAAA elected a board and officers. Hatton is the chairman, and Maloney is vice chairman. The other officers are Secretary Michel de Blust, secretary general of the European Travel Agents and Tour Operators Associations (ECTAA), secretary, and Treasurer Christiane Theberge, CEO of the Association of Canadian Travel Agents (ACTA).
In addition, WTAAA launched its Web site, at www.wtaaa.org.
For decades, there has been another worldwide association for travel trade groups, the United Federation of Travel Agents Associations (UFTAA). However, WTAAA founders, including ASTA, over the years have dropped out of UFTAA out of frustration that the group is “ineffective at getting anything done,” Maloney said.
There are many common issues that agents around the world face, such as debit memos, dealing with GDS rules and the question of antitrust immunity for the SkyTeam airline alliance. De Blust, Hatton and Theberge will be among the representatives of the trade at an April 23 IATA meeting focusing on IATA’s elimination of paper tickets for travel agents worldwide, except in the U.S.
Besides those already mentioned in this report, WTAAA member organizations include the Association of South African Travel Agents, the Travel Agents Association of New Zealand and the Travel Agents Federation of India.
WTAAA member associations represent almost 70% of global airline billing settlement plans. Because ECTAA covers the European Union, it represents trade organizations in 33 countries.
To contact the reporter who wrote this article, send e-mail to Nadine Godwin at [email protected].