Last week, I took a very quick look back at the major events during
the 33 years I've been here.
For my last column before the year 2000, I'll take a stab at a
few predictions about the travel business:
1. The location of a travel agency is going to be less
important. While there still will be retail locations, many
agencies will thrive without storefronts.
The number of locations with ARC licenses will continue to
decline, but the number of agents won't. Large ticketing outlets
will hold the ARC licenses, and many thousands of agents will use
their services. These agents will get part of the air earnings from
the ARC outlets but will develop nonair businesses working from
home and/or on the Internet.
2. Travel agencies will get into e-commerce in a big way. If
they can manage it on their own, they'll do it.
If not, they'll be in the game through affiliations in the same
way that smaller independent agencies learned how to earn overrides
by joining consortia 30 years ago.
E-commerce will become an important part of the agency business.
For some agencies, it will be their only mode of doing business.
For others, it will be added to walk-in and phone-in business.
As e-commerce grows, the means by which agencies do business
with suppliers increasingly will move to the Internet.
The CRS vendors will offer faster and easier Internet access,
but agencies will have many other options to book suppliers on
proprietary Web sites.
3. Commissions paid by suppliers will become more difficult to
obtain as agencies are compelled to narrow the number of suppliers
they use and meet stricter productivity standards.
Meanwhile, agencies will recognize that they can charge
customers more for their services.
Agencies will adopt a broader range of fees and the amount of
the fees will increase to the point where compensation from
customers will account for a far more significant portion of agency
revenue.
4. Agents, especially those using the Internet, will start more
specialized boutique product lines catering to specific market
segments. Some will become quite successful in specialized
areas.
5. No matter how high-tech the world becomes, travelers will
still depend on the personal recommendations of their travel
agents, but to be successful, agents will need to learn to use
information resources more efficiently than their customers do.
Well, that's it for this millennium. I'm going to take a
breather and will be back Jan. 6. Have a good holiday and all the
best in the year ahead.