Industry needs to get in tune with consumers: AFTA

The Australian Federation of Travel Agents has hit back at critics of it accreditation scheme, saying they are not in tune with the wants and needs of consumers.

Speaking at the Travel DAZE conference in Sydney, accreditation, marketing and communications manager Jo Tralaggan stressed that businesses need to ensure they evolve in order to stay “relevant and appealing” to the consumer.

“Our research illustrated that something consumers are seeking is certainty” she said. “And our research also shows that certainty is closely tied with accreditation. Consumers just feel more confident when they are dealing with a business that has a certificate or some sort of accreditation.”

Tralaggan said that the Australian travel industry came from a “compensation mindset”, served for many years by the now defunct Travel Compensation Fund.

“As a result, in ATAS’ first year we observed that some industry members struggled with the change. “The most obvious struggle was to look from the perception of the consumer and to understand how consumers perceive and experience travel.”

AFTA’s focus has been on marketing the accreditation scheme and its members as “trusted, expert, professional and reputable” in order to tap into that need for certainty on the part of the consumer. However, critics have continued to push for some form of compensation to be tied to the scheme.

“So our experience shows the way consumers think is very different to the way we in the industry think,” Tralaggan said.

“But the truth is, what consumer think is what matters most because they’re the ones who decide who they’re going to book with.”

Despite a number of high profile agency collapses in the last 18 months, most recently that of Value World Travel, Tralaggan was adamant that the industry’s reputation has emerged unscathed, an assertion she based on “the numbers”.

“Some within the industry would believe that without having compensation for losses when a business goes broke as a cornerstone for the ATAS proposition then the industry is doomed, but that’s not what consumers think and that’s not what our research shows.”

Meanwhile, Tralaggan highlighted another disparity between consumers and the trade as the perception of the role of the travel agent.

“Agents see themselves as advocates, as someone who will always be there at the end of the line to help them out,” she explained.

“However, research shows for the consumer, the ability to help during the trip is important but is actually secondary to creating that experience.

“If you want to attract a consumer, and we’re all in business to make sales, then you need to understand consumers’ purchase behaviour and then appeal to them.”

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Latest comments

Bruce says:
November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am
Id say about 95% of consumers never had any idea about travel agent licensing, and the TCF etc. and now its a similar story for this joke of an accreditation scheme which actually costs more than licensing+TCF ever cost.
I certainly wont be helping to pad out the salaries of the directors of AFTA by signing up or jumping through their hoops (including hoops that never existed under licensing).
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robyn says:
November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am
OMG AFTA/ATAS just dont get it, if you protect the agent you by default protect the consumer. Lets move on ATAS doesnt protect the agent therefore it doesnt protect the consumer and nether was it intended to, and thats why its not a good scheme for travel agents. Most travel agents are trading exposed because no one has a crystal ball. We work in travel and see value and ATAS just doesnt have it yet.
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