Demand for global travel should be met by more airline capacity. Photo / File
Demand for global travel should be met by more airline capacity. Photo / File
A Kiwi elected to head a global travel agents body says the industry needs to do better for clients and wants stronger rules to protect consumer rights.
Andrew Bowman has close to 40 years in the sector which he says is up to 40 per cent smaller after thepandemic wiped out a big chunk of it.
But among surviving businesses there’s optimism and into 2023 there is better news for consumers - sharp price rises could start to moderate.
Bowman’s just been elected chair of the World Travel Agents Associations Alliance (WTAAA), whose membership comes from national bodies around the world.
The industry is now re-grouping with many surviving companies doing very well as demand exceeds pre-pandemic levels in some countries.
‘’I think as each day and week goes by the outlook improves and the confidence improves in this being a sustainable recovery,’’ he said.
‘’I think everyone’s delighted to be in the position that we’re in but continued improvement won’t happen by chance.’’
Compared to the United States and Europe, New Zealand has relatively weak mandatory protection for air travellers. Opportunities to increase consumer rights around airline obligations for delays and cancellations were largely dropped from aviation legislation which is making its way slowly through Parliament.
‘’Covid threw up a lot of ambiguity, what we’re looking to try to do is to get transparency and clarity around things and standardisation to a point.’’
The whole travel industry was at the ‘’never waste a crisis’' stage.
Andrew Bowman, chair of the World Travel Agents Associations Alliance. Photo / Getty Images
It was hard to come up with universal cross-national rules but this was an opportunity to ‘’take a good hard look at everything’’, said Bowman.
‘’We’ve gone through this catastrophic period and we can take the opportunity to try and address some anomalies that have existed and take a fresh approach to things like refunds and disruption management.’’
While travel agents were often left to deal with problems outside of their control, they too had to work hard on building trust and confidence in what they do.
‘’We need to raise the bar, we’re really committed to this,’’ he said.
‘’It’s not to say that we didn’t think that we were doing a good job previously, but it’s like anything, if you want to stay in the game, you’ve got to keep improving and demonstrating your value.’’
Agents had introduced service fees as commissions have dwindled, especially from airlines.
In this country Air New Zealand and Qantas have dropped commissions to only a nominal value for most of the bookings travel agents do. They say they’ve ended up doing more work than ever for airlines as disruptions have increased and their call centres are overloaded.
The industry also wanted to work more closely with the Government in this country. Bowman said the travel industry could have played a valuable role in helping with MIQ booking systems and arrival systems.
‘‘It was catastrophic. They were making decisions sort of on the fly but, I think the lesson learned is we would certainly like to have a greater voice with government and we’re really willing to contribute, whether that’s in NZ or around the world.’'
WTAAA has members from travel associations in Australia, Canada, Europe, India, the United States, South Africa, Hong Kong, Korea, NZ (TAANZ), South America, Spain and Southeast Asia, with regional and direct presence in 67 countries.
In 2023, the sharp increase in airfares, hotel room rates and other onground costs suffered this year could start moderating as the surge in travel demand eases.
‘‘I think we’ll start to see that all segments of the market start to return to what they were in terms of demand, pre-Covid.”
Fares will start to moderate as airlines, recovering financially with many operating profitably, can build out schedules for the next 12 months and take a longer term view. The booming cruise sector was back to planning several years out.
‘‘With more inventory in the system, there is a greater ability to offer lower fares through the network and increasingly we’re seeing airlines stepping up.”
The role of one sizeable part of the aviation market, Mainland China, is uncertain as that country rapidly dismantles Covid-19 restrictions. Mainland Chinese airlines had about 10 per cent of the market into NZ before the pandemic.
