Don’t trust the independents
It’s a hard life being a journalist and I’ve just come back from the Association of British Travel Agents’ conference in Morocco.
As well as eating pigeon and kus-kus – an acquired taste – we all had fun listening to tour operators and travel agents raging at each other. The big tour operators, such as Thomson, Thomas Cook and First Choice have decided to cut the basic level of commission that they pay agents for selling their holidays, from 10% to 7%.
They need to reduce their costs because, belatedly, they’ve realised that people want to book holidays on the Internet and they need to sell more of their packages in this way.
What’s that got to do with normal people? you might ask. Possibly more than you realise. In the UK, there are over 2,000 independent travel agents (those not owned by the big tour companies) and they’ve threatened to boycott the commission cutters and push the holidays sold by other companies.
So, don’t believe that word ‘independent’ when it comes to travel agents. They are all supporting the companies that pay them the biggest commissions.
No wonder more people are booking over the Internet.
Guest Article by Jeremy Skidmore
Saturday, December 31st, 2005
My name is Alan Potts and I'm the Editor of the UK Ferry Tickets web site and Managing Director of BUYability Limited. You can connect with me or keep up to date with new posts on this blog via the following social media sites: 
