CHICAGO -- The role of travel agents in processing the sale of
travel will significantly diminish unless they adapt to emerging
technologies and leverage their ability to "provide knowledge
pertinent to the buyer's needs," according to Richard Eastman,
president of the Eastman Group.
Speaking during a standing-room-only seminar at Travel Weekly's
Technology 2000 conference here May 3, Eastman said travel agents
are racing towards a fork in road and the wrong choice could lead
them down the path toward oblivion.
Eastman, who discussed "Redesigning the Role of Agents in Travel
Distribution," warned an audience comprised mostly of agents that
"your jobs are at risk [unless] you redesign the way you do
business."
That is particularly true, Eastman said, for agents who sell
airline seats.
Eastman said over the past 30 years, flying on an airline has
shifted from being an "experience" reserved for the few to a
"commodity" now commonly bought and sold every minute of every
day.
Consumer demand for point-to-point service has driven the price
of airline tickets down, forcing airlines to "find new was to new
ways to reduce costs."
One way was to reduce the commission they pay travel agents for
selling airplane seats. The role of travel agents as selling the
physical airline tickets also is diminishing with the advent of
electronic tickets and airline ticket Web sites.
Indeed, Eastman said, "the Internet is easier than the
[computerized reservations systems]."
The end result of these changes is a dramatic altering of the
"hierarchy" sales model most agents have been accustomed to since
airline deregulation.
In the "hierarchy" model, Eastman said, "the real skill of
travel agents is to know the command language" of the CRSs to
process ticket transactions.
However, the emergence of the Internet is steadily morphing the
"hierarchy" model, largely controlled by a supplier, into a
"hyperarchy," where the "power shifts to the consumer."
Indeed, Eastman said, Internet travel Web sites are enhancing
the "reach and richness of information," by allowing consumers to
research and book their own travel, including airline tickets.
"We have just begun to see the automation of the richness [of
information over the Web]," Eastman said. "It is going to get
better and more targeted" in the years to come.
Consequently, Eastman said, that lends some credibility to a
recent assertion by Bear Stearns, a Wall Street firm, that predicts
25% of travel agents will lose their jobs in the next five
years.
However, Eastman said, travel agents still hold a powerful
advantage over the various computerized booking systems on the
Web.
As the hyperarchy model evolves, Eastman said, travel agents
will find that they will need to become "knowledge navigators."
"In a hyperarchy choice becomes bewildering," Eastman said,
since computers cannot discern the "core values of people or human
relationships as a function of what they will buy."
Eastman urged the audience to embrace the emerging technology to
for example, create computerized data files on their clients, much
like the personal name records used by the airlines.