Travel Chaos is Boon for Travel Advisors
byDori Saltzman/Despite the frustrations of long hold times with suppliers and constant flight changes, delays and cancellations, travel chaos isn’t all bad for travel advisors, executives at five host agency and franchise companies say.
(In other installments of this series, we talked to executives abouthow the first half of 2022 went overall,unexpected influx of new talent, 和他们对今年剩余时间的期望)
The Frustration is Real…
Nest总裁Kathryn Mazza-Burney说:“今天您无法听到已经取消了一千次航班,因此您今天无法打开新闻,因此这绝对是干扰的。”
“They are definitely dealing with chaos with the airlines,” Michelle Fee, founder and CEO of Cruise Planners, said. “There are still long hold times… every booking takes twice as long as it could because they’re on hold.”
“It’s very frustrating,” added Jackie Friedman, president of Nexion Travel Group. “But clearly that means that people are traveling.”
Jeff Anderson, co-president of Avoya Travel, agreed. “A headache? Definitely… It can be really bad when somebody has their trip canceled. That’s a significant problem, but we’re not seeing that deter people from continuing to shop and buy vacations.”
世界旅行社的首席运营官黛比·菲奥里诺(Debbie Fiorino)是梦幻假期的母公司,与安德森(Anderson)相呼应。“我们的客户正在应对很多压力和挫败感,但他们仍在预订,他们仍在旅行。”
同样的挫败感将消费者推向顾问
机场的障碍,或从朋友或电视上取消和延迟航班的故事不仅表明人们回到大量旅行,而且并没有被所有混乱所困扰。
It’s also highlighting the value of travel advisors to people who may have forgotten that advisors still exist.
“I think what’s happening is some of the DIY, those do-it-yourself first, are now thinking ‘Oh, my gosh, I don’t want to sit on hold. I need to call a travel advisor to help me,” Fee said. “Those type of travelers are starting to understand the value of a good travel advisor.”
Mazza-Burney说:“顾问正在做顾问所做的最擅长的事情。”“他们正在为自己的帐户提供服务。他们真正向消费者展示了为什么使用旅行顾问如此重要。”
A Little Perspective
Anderson told TMR when it comes to flights, he believes much of the chaos has been overstated.
“I think that the recent troubles need to be put in perspective. It’s still only a couple of percent of flights that are actually being canceled… The number’s too big, don’t get me wrong. You don’t want any cancellations.”
But he said there’s more delays than cancellations, adding that during a recent check of the FAA site, more than 42,000 flights were being tracked. Of those, a couple thousand were actually canceled.
Better Than the Alternative
几位高管TMR与之交谈还想提醒旅行顾问,旅行混乱是完全没有人旅行的。
菲奥里诺说:“现在,旅行专业人员,无论是协证的限制,是否是航空问题,都有很大的压力,焦虑,沮丧。”“但是您知道,就在几周前,我们看到第一艘船回到水中了一年。他们从担心他们是否要幸免于关闭整个行业的大流行,而不是担心处理所有这些混乱。我会选择第二天的第二天,在周日两次。”
Fiorino added she doesn’t want to downplay how stressful it can be for advisors. “But it’s such an important thing to keep in perspective. Just stop and think about where we were in 2020… know that these things will get better. We have businesses that are doing really well and we’re way too busy to keep up and that’s a really good thing.”
Mazza-Burney said it’s all one more example of how resilient the travel agency industry is.
“当情况变得艰难时,这个行业的强硬顾问真正站起来并发光。我们已经度过了一些非常艰难的时期。但是顾问在这里留下来。”