Travolution@ITT - Part 14 - Happy families

Travel writer Bill Bryson, alas, is unwell and has been unable to make the eight-hour flight to Oman to round up the second day’s events.

A collective feeling of disappointment hangs in the air.

Fear not, Nicholas Witchell says, as Hoseasons boss Richard Carrick has admirably stepped in to fill Bryson’s shoes with a Q&A session

ITT has hastily re-arranged the morning’s programme to include the Q&A, which turns out to be an interesting session that features, amongst other issues, the thorny issue surrounding fate of industry bodies.

President of the Association of British Travel Agents, Justin Fleming, says he is doesn’t see a future for a plethora of trade associations, when - for example - so many travel companies are doing the same thing.

It turns out that Abta and the Federation of Tour Operators, represented on stage by Andrew Cooper, have recently stopped “discussions” about a merger.

This doesn’t really surprise many delegates – “the United Nations would have problems getting those two to agree”, one delegate says later.

[Conference photos on Flickr]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution