Who was dot-conned in the end?
In the spirit of our celebration of Ten Years of Online Travel, here is a small reminder of how things were, according to some, in the bad old days of the internet.
The ad was produced by the Association of British Travel Agents in 2002.
Some argued at the time that it was a rearguard action by Abta in response to pressure from agents who could see their consumer base slipping away to the pesky upstarts in the online world.
The official line was that the ad was created to warn consumers about the dangers of un-bonded holidays.
You decide…
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
2 comments:
It was originally designed to do just that Kevin, but it is Ironic that in Travel weekly today, a published letter from David Speakman, Chairman of Travel Counsellors asks about a statement from ABTA regarding that on Jan 30th this year ABTA issued the following guidance note to it's agent members:"We will cease direct payments to consumers in respect of failure of members conducting reatail activities"
Apparently this guidance note has now disappeared and no further clarification on this position has been sent to it's members.
Select World Travel is a member of the Travel Trust Association, and certainly at present, Our Clients and Suppliers have all of the protection they need.
it is very odd that, despite the protestations of the industry, the ad campaign actually felt like sour grapes from the agents faced with a trendy young threat like never before, rather than the reality which was actually about protecting consumers.
Post a Comment