Is the high-street travel agency model completely broken?

A snowHead

Every year I price up my skiing trip in three ways: DIY, specialist ski travel agenct, and the high street. I think our requirements are fairly mainstream: we're a family of five who generally need to travel in school holidays; we often - but not always - travel to North America; and we like to choose our resort rather than take what an agent wants to sell us.

Most years DIY is the cheapest option. Specialist tour operators are usually close in price, and win maybe 40% of the time. But I have never been offered the best deal by a high street operator. Most years their price is at least 50% higher than the best deal.

This year was a case in point. No high street operator could take me to the resort I wanted (flights all sold out, apparently), and none could accommodate a trip to North America for the exact dates that I wanted. The best price that I was quoted for a not-quite-what-I-wanted trip was £2,900 (no, that's not a mistake) more than a ski specialist quoted me for exactly what I was looking for.

Does anyone have success with high street travel agencies these days? Or is the model completely broken?

A snowHead

I've always thought so. Though I've always thought the high-street travel agency to be a particularly European construct (that may be my own North American bias) I'm just old enough to have needed to go to a travel agent to collect airline tickets (before the Internet) I don't think I've used a travel agent since 1997, except perhaps calling American Express Travel to have them rebook a flight while I was standing in the check-in line for the new flight. (I don't think that really counts.)

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I was in Bilbao a few months back. Lots of agencies there.

But for me - it's dead. 4 to 5 holidays a year, no whole packages booked on the High Street since 1989. The odd flight only since. Specialist mail order and telephone stuff in the 1990s. Ski fresh tracks over the phone from a brochure once a year is the closest I get. Otherwise the web and phone. I use an agency by internet for US ski passes, and that's it. I can see the point for elderly punters though.

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I don't actually recollect using a high street agency ever period...

bizarrely enough a new retail travel agent opened a few months ago near where I live - I've never seen anybody in it at all..

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Just walk past one on a Saturday afternoon and see how many people are in there. You can see how knackered it is as a model now.

The only reason to have them is so that people when they go home from shopping for the day remember the name of the travel agent and have a poke at their website.

I have a travel agent. He is either (depending on whether this is summer or winter holiday) someone in a call centre who gives me a discount against their web price (where I find what I want) and then takes some payments and makes a few changes if they happen, or it is a nice man who works from home and finds me interesting holidays to go on or custom builds the holiday I want, for which I pay a bit of a premium. Other than that I buy off a website without so much as talking to a human being about my purchase.

If I didn't know what I wanted, I might think about walking into a high street travel agent. I'd then take their advice and buy the same trip online.

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I went into one earlier this year to look at possibilities for a summer holiday:-

Me "I'm looking for a New York city visit with a week on the coast nearby tagged on"
Them "What about NY and California?"
Me "That's not close at all it's thousands of miles away I'd like somewhere within driving distance"
Them "How about Florida?"

Useless!

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After all it is free

achilles,

The whole High Street model seems to be based on Henry Ford's idea of selling punters what's been produced cheaply rather than selling them something that they want. Except, unlike Henry's Model T cars, it's not cheap.

Me: "I'd like to go to Jackson Hole, please. For 8 days, and the best price I've found so far is £x."

Agent (on phone to holiday manufacturer): "The flights are full to Jackson. And we can't do 8 days - it has to be 7 or 10. Would you like to go to Banff instead? Winter Park, maybe? No? Mammoth's great; I'm sure your kids would love Mammoth. California, you know. Real authentic America. Brilliant. Oh, wait... I think we have some availability in Fernie. Are you OK with a Studio apartment? It's a tight fit for a family, but it is North America. Let me get you quotes for those options as they seem suitable for you. Mammoth is £(x + 4,000). Fernie is £(x + 2,900). Would you like me to put any of those on hold for you? Availability is very tight, so you're best to make a decision today. I'm worried that you might miss the opportunity to take your kids to Fernie this year."

According to every website in the universe, there's abundant space on the flights to Jackson. On the dates I want. At a price I can afford. But no: the factory has made Mammoth and Fernie at a price I can't afford, so it's Mammoth and Fernie that I'm offered. I'm sure that Mammoth and Fernie are great places. But I want to go to Jackson.

I only do it for the laughs. Every skier should visit a travel agent at least once a year. It'll keep you giggling until you reach the white stuff.

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They're like free bookshops giving away magazines with nice photos in

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Occasionally pick up a brochure in one, but that's about it.

My best two experiences were both in Kendal, just pre-internet.

Bought a ferry ticket for a trip to France, and was told that their policy was that I must have insurance in case something happened, and that it was a good idea any, because France "counts as abroad - I know it's not really, but we have to consider it as abroad". Now, in Kent, I could just about accept that France is *barely* abroad, but most people in Kendal think everything south of Preston is a foreign country!

Different shop, buying a package to Austria -
agent - "of course all of the party have UK passports"
me - "no, some of us are Irish"
agent - "well you'll need visas then, and you'll have to contact the Austrian embassy about that, I can't advise you on visas"
me - "why do you think we'll need visas?"
agent - "because you're not British and I can't advise you on visa requirements if you're not British".

It's as if they had never heard of the EU.

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It's always either frustrating or amusing when you go into a high street shop and you know much more about the product than the salesperson (an all too common occurrence these days).

In the field of electronic consumer goods Dixons (now Currys) were renowned for it (salespeople often spouting utter bollox). rolling eyes

In fairness I should add that in Derby there is one family owned electrical/electronics shop that has been trading for decades and all the counter staff have extensive knowledge of their products and can give sound technical advice if customers require it. It's such a refreshing change to go to a shop where the people actually know about what they are selling! Very Happy

Alastair Pink, Not just shops....
Whats the soup of the day?
Just a moment I'll check with the Kitchen.
rolling eyes

Winds me right up!

You know it makes sense.

You have to assume they're doing something for someone though, or TUI would have shut them all.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Never been in one for 20 years, and dont know how they survive, for all the reasons above, maybe just a TUI tax write-off??

A snowHead

There certainly must be some purpose to them, since they still exist. No doubt all the smaller ones will go (or become specialist online agencies?), big brands aer online anyway, and then it's just things like STA. In fact STA just opened a pretty sizeable branch here, right in the centre of the pedestrian zone.

Tried to buy tickets to Russia for a student exchange once. STA... the erm "student" travel agency insisted that their prices were the cheapest possible, because they "deal mostly with students". Phoned my mother, who was a travel consultant in a high street branch. Got 4 tickets for less than half the price that STA could offer Smile

So they do (did?) have their uses, and a decent travel consultant that has knowledge of the industry can beat even the specialists. Although o'Leary's bunch and the orange one probably killed off that method of getting cheap tickets, though, at least for shorthaul.

And as for Dixons group... well one of my friends got evicted from PC World after butting in to an ongoing sales enquiry, when he overheard the 20yr old telling them factually incorrect information Smile

A snowHead

They're great for unimaginitive or lazy people. Some people just want to say 'send me to a nice hotel with a pool and a cocktail bar, near a beach please, where everyone speaks English' and hand over the cash, and forget about it until departure day.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Did High St travel agents ever work for skiing? I thought they were for Club 18-30 holidays to Magaluf Toofy Grin

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my my, the old school SKGB vibe is strong in this thread, isn't it?

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I've used specialist travel agents for trips to India and Africa. I felt like a bit of a fraud not doing the DIY thing but we had limited time and wanted everything to be as seamless as possible. For both, they were great and (certainly in India) we did some things which I would never even have found out about on my own.
I guess it depends on your comfort zone. I'm happy organising myself in developed countries but in new exotic places, an expert can be helpful. Note, an "expert" - not some muppet who can't even pronounce French place names

After all it is free

Looking to plan a summer trip to Canada next year so i went to a high street more specialise provider who gave me a price for the family of flights and care hire. I then go a on travel website and the price is £800 cheaper. No idea how the high street model works at all, but to be fair when i was in the shop there were plenty of people there and it was busy

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haven't used the high street travel agents fro years..
Can't see what they offer, www opens up greater choice and flexibility

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Jonny Jones, slightly off topic, but you goto NA at Easter with the family? It's something I want to consider.

Interestingly I do find them best priced for sun based package holidays. 2 years ago we went to Turkey, the Thomas Cook price was thousands cheaper than booking with the hotel directly.

Motley Fool opinion below.

Thomas Cook
How did you buy your last holiday? I booked mine on the internet, and I think there are millions of people in the UK who did the same.
In my view, high street travel agents belong in the past. Thomas Cook (LSE: TCG) is still Europe's second biggest tour operator, but it is in dire trouble. In September it suspended its dividend while it works to rebuild its balance sheet.
Manny Fontenla-Novoa left his post as chief executive in August after the third profit warning of the year, while the company faces a test of its banking covenants in December -- a traditionally quiet time for bookings. To raise the necessary funds, Thomas Cook is pinning its hopes on selling assets such as offices and hotels. It has to hope this will be enough.
The tour operator has net debts of £900 million, which look large to me when profits this year should come in at £320 million. Given the circumstances, talk of P/E ratios and dividend yields is, quite frankly, irrelevant. No wonder the share price has fallen from 230p in April 2011 to the current price of 37p.
I can think of many less risky value plays in this current market.

You know it makes sense.

I don't think I have ever used a travel agent. I always book direct with the TO. Before the internet, I did this by phone. In fact, I still do this by phone as it's not always possible to book online for one person (how blatantly single-ist!). What does a travel agent do that I can't?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

this website is the wrong demographic for travel agencies these days. In shopping centres / high streets that are at the bottom of the market, they are still thriving. I expect that will decline though as more people get easy access to the internet whatever their background.

A snowHead

Think the bucket shops have had their day, but there is a place for the specialist - friends run a small travel agency in Wanstead specialising in more exotic locations, safaris and the caribbean and are doing ok at present. They always make sure that their staff have first hand knowledge of the locations and resorts they sell though, which means fact-finding trips to Bahamhas, cuba, china, thailand, kenya, egypt etc etc, I keep offering to work for them so they can tap the lucrative exotic snow markets for Iran, Peru, Alaska etc, but they just tell me to get to the bar...

**CAUTION SPAM!**
www.escapeworldwide.co.uk - ask for Karen, Darren or Mark, tell them Richard sent you and it's their round. Toofy Grin

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

beanie1, not sure that's so. Went on a P&O cruise, arranged through a locally-owned travel agent, with a disabled person. We were assisted by someone who had been on the ship personally, who could give reassurance about disabled access throughout the ship, and gave a lot of thought as to the best cabin for us (turned out to be spot on). So an experience a bit like that of Richard_Sideways.

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Hello all

You might be surprised to find out from me that it seems not all people behave like the cognoscenti on this forum, and that a pretty large proportion actually prefer to book their holidays face to face (or at least over the phone) rather than using the web.

For those interested in such things, you will also note how the big high street retailers are increasingly (to use the jargon) "joining up" their distribution channels so that you can buy online and collect in store, and vice versa. Travel is no different. We know that approx half of Crystal customers book their holidays (both summer and winter) online with a brochure in their hands, or pretty near by. To disregard a channel at this stage of the game would be commercial suicide for a larger player like us. The big play is in behaving consistently across channels, making the best of all, something that pure play online businesses cannot do.

Cheers

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Monium, perhaps Simon makes a valid point. When you discover a factory defect in your holiday and wish to put it back in the box and return it, you'll be glad to have a local shop to take it back to.

It also saves the fuss of have waiting around at the house for the delivery of your holiday, some of the larger hoildays won't fit through the letter slot.

After all it is free

I've DIY'ed for years and now work the season. My sister took up skiing last year and booked through the high street even though I offered, why?
Because she felt as it was new to her and she was not going to where I was working she wanted the back up of a TO which I fully understand as she was taking her two children.
This year she's done the same this time taking a few friends along. When I said I could sort something for her she said she could not be bothered with all the hassle and just wanted a one stop shop.

I can understand this. It is OK for the likes of us who are independent and capable of (and wanting to) sorting any issues out that arise but for a lot of people they don't want or need that independence and are willing to pay for it.

Simon Cross,

I'm surprised and impressed to see that you've responded to a random rant about my frustrating lunchtime. As the holiday shop that I visited was, like Crystal, part of the TUI Group, and was attempting to sell one of your holidays, I'll try to give you some more considered feedback.

I don't believe that most of the 'cognoscenti' of these forums are above seeking expert advice. As an experienced skier, I have clear ideas about the type of holiday that I want, but I'm no expert in the intricacies of airline schedules or the mysteries of hotel pricing. If I can find a suitable expert, I'll willingly pay a little more to have them guide me through the maze, but, sadly, I haven't yet found that person in the hight street. Remember, we Snowheads are opinion formers: I'm asked for advice on skiing holidays at least a dozen time a year and we could be useful ambassadors for you.

Here are a few of the things that, if fixed, might persuade me to open my wallet:

- Make sure that sales staff are properly trained. I was referred to the shop's 'ski expert' and, although she was personable, enthusiastic and enjoyed skiing herself, she clearly knew very little about the holidays in your brochure. She had no idea of matters such as which resorts were suitable for expert skiers, which resorts involved a drive to the slopes or which resorts had accommodation that was suitable for a family of five without the need to resort to sofa beds or having kids in our own bedroom.

- Give sales staff access to the right technology. My advisor had no access to a computerised booking system, so she was reduced to relaying messages between me and one of your booking agents. If the computer systems are too hard to fix, simply using a speakerphone to allow a proper three way dialogue might have improved the chances of finding the right deal for me. The way things were set up, the adviser had no realistic opportunity to do a decent job, and I ended up feeling sympathy rather than respect.

- Make sure that staff have the right product to sell. Running out of flights many months before the ski season is surely an opportunity for you to purchase some additional allocation. There are plenty of flights to Jackson on the dates that I wanted - an independent agent suggested either Heathrow or Bristol as a UK starting point and offered to route me through Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris or Amsterdam. I've rarely been so spoiled for choice.

- Offer sensible alternatives if a resort is unavailable. When the agent discovered that Jackson was unavailable, I was offered almost every North American resort in your brochure with no discrimination (sorry: as a point of accuracy, I was actually offered Lake Tahoe and not Mammoth as I said in my earlier rant). I'd clearly said that I wanted plenty of advanced skiing with an authentic Wild West character, but your own brochure suggests several other resorts as being more suitable for advanced skiers than Winter Park (the first alternative I was offered) or Lake Tahoe (the second alternative). Neither of these resorts is usually regarded as having an authentic Western ambiance.

- Don't milk school holidays (sorry!). Our holidays don't match American holidays, so there's no real excuse for bumping up the price of transatlantic packages at that time. In particular, independently booked holidays to the States are no more expensive at half term than at other times in February, so you look absurdly expensive to anyone who's properly pricing up their options.

These aren't difficult things to fix, and TUI gets many things right. The shop was convenient, adequately staffed, pleasantly laid out and the staff were extremely friendly and keen to help. I just don't think they'd been properly equipped.

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Monium, , I'm speaking from my experience as a retail agent (i.e. letting shops).

it's not keeping a shop open for 18% of the population, as the location of these shops (where they're expanding) is very specific - locations where probably 80/ 90% of the shoppers fall into that category.

Help!!

Is the high-street travel agency model completely broken?

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