HONOLULU Like a football coach pumping up his players before a big
game, ASTA President Richard Copland urged travel agents to stay
aggressive and focused and to embrace both technology and supplier
partnerships during hard times.
During his opening address at the 72nd ASTA World Congress here
last week, Copland said when he assumed the presidency of the
association two years ago at the Las Vegas congress, “I spoke about
a dream, and part of that dream was for a two-year period where
there was a semblance of sanity around the world and some stability
in the industry. The dream turned into a nightmare.
“It seems the only event that didn’t happen during my term was
the melting of the polar ice cap.”
Copland, who has since been elected to a second term, said ASTA
will continue to fight the airlines for the benefit of agents and
consumers.
However, he added, for some members and nonmembers who still
want ASTA to expend all its energies and use its resources battling
the airlines: “Folks, the plane may have been delayed, but it’s
taken off. Focusing on the airlines is yesterday’s news. Going to
zero commissions has uprooted what little was left of our old
comfortable world. Travel agents are in deep trouble if they
haven’t figured out by now that the business model that’s been the
key to success for the past 30 years has become irrelevant.
“We’ve got to move on and prepare ourselves to be the travel
agents of tomorrow by building relationships with suppliers and
cementing relationships with consumers. However, we would be hiding
our heads in the sand if we didn’t acknowledge that suppliers are
taking a closer look at our performance.”
For years, Copland said, customers called on agents, who offered
a huge menu of everything that was available.
“Suppliers saw that as order taking, not selling, and they were
right,” he said. “As times changed, we became better business
people. We narrowed our preferred suppliers and for this we were
rewarded. The flip side is that consumers began to question our
neutrality, spurred on by the consumer media. While selected
selling is standard business practice in many industries, when it
comes to travel agents, it’s labeled ‘bias.’”
Pay no attention to that viewpoint, he told agents. Close
relationships with suppliers will produce extra perks for clients
and prompt attention to their problems, among other benefits.
“A major challenge for the travel agents of tomorrow will be
finding just the right combination of suppliers who want us and
consumers who need us,” he said.
Copland said agents shouldn’t be cowed by online travel
agencies.
“Savvy agents understand that the pie of available business will
constantly get bigger as more people travel,” he said. “There will
always be a large segment of the population who values their time
and has no interest in being a do-it-yourselfer.”
Even though to book with travel agents will cost more, agents
must charge fees, he said. “It’s time all of us learned that if
customers don’t want to pay for our services, they’re not customers
we want.”
Copland acknowledged the agents in the audience by repeating a
Japanese proverb: “If you sit on a stone for three years, you’ll
get used to it.”
“The travel agents left standing today, and the ones I see
sitting in the audience, are the ones who have refused to get used
to sitting on a stone, refused to get used to having our value
questioned and our livelihood attacked. They’ve fought back with
the best weapon ever invented: intelligence the intelligence to
change and adapt. And I have complete faith travel agents will
continue on this course.”
