Trade association officials can't wave a magic wand and make
everything better for their members, but Richard Copland, the New
York City agent who takes over as ASTA president this week, has a
personality and background that are appropriate for the difficult
times travel agencies are facing.
He's a lawyer as well as a travel agent. In fact he's had to
defend against political opponents within ASTA who have claimed
that his wife, Elaine, is the agent in the family and he spends
more time as an attorney.
But that's a foolish argument in an industry characterized by so
many family-owned businesses. Copland is no absentee owner; he
understands and can articulate industry issues quite well.
He describes himself as a "negotiator," a valuable asset to have
in dealing with suppliers, especially the airlines, that have
assigned a lower priority to agents in recent years.
He also has shown he is no pushover. He was defeated in a bid
for reelection as ASTA treasurer in 1996 and made a comeback two
years ago, winning the vice presidency.
High on Copland's list of priorities has been the need to
strengthen ASTA's lobbying ability. He has maintained that one of
the reasons the airlines have been able to ride roughshod over the
trade is their lobbying skill in Washington.
Even if ASTA bolsters its lobbying presence in Washington, it is
likely to be overmatched by the Capitol Hill clout of the
deep-pocketed carriers; but a better lobbying effort is worth the
effort, and we can expect to see that under Copland.
Apart from his aggressiveness, Copland also brings a skill at
identifying issues confronting the trade. In recent speeches, he
has summed up the post-commission cap experience to date as a
period of "denial" for agents.
He points out that many agents have continued to hope against
hope that the caps would be reversed or eased.
Now, Copland says, agents are emerging from that fantasy and are
beginning to take positive steps to deal with the reality of the
changes wrought by reduced compensation from the airlines. They
must apply that same sense of reality, he says, to the explosion of
new technology, particularly the Internet.
It is unrealistic for ASTA agency members to pin too much of
their hopes on the belief that their trade association will pull
enough rabbits out of their hat to make the travel agency business
more profitable.
But this is a time for a smart, hard-nosed administration, and
Copland looks like the right guy for the next few years.